I’m afraid I’ve been using Linux for so long that I’m not very knowledgeable about backup software for Windows. But I’ve been using Duplicati for a single Windows computer for years, and it’s apparently also running on Linux. I never tried on Linux though, so don’t take my words for cash.

There’s also Duplicity, but it’s command line and will probably require installing the Windows Subsystem for Linux. There’s also Bacula but it’s mostly for businesses. This Wikipedia page may know more than me.

On Linux, Deja Dup acts as a graphical interface for Duplicity, is easy, and is the default for GNOME and Cinnamon. Compatible with Duplicity but as mentioned, it’s complicated for Windows.

However I think those are “too complicated” (I prefer raw files instead of archives) and for Linux I’ve been using rsync with a job scheduler (cron) for years. It’s technically not a backup solution in itself but many backup software, like those mentioned, use rsync in some form anyway. Unfortunately it does not work on Windows. My strategy is to use rsync to copy my important files to an older HDD, then the very important files are also sent on an online drive.

The TLDR would be to give Duplicati a try if you really want a backup solution that is cross platform and graphical. Otherwise, there’s nothing more certain than making copies yourself.

I guess I don’t need to remind you to be careful. Take your time. Try restoring to be sure it works. Good luck!

I have created directories of my own in several odd locations which I cannot recall but they also contain some critical files.

O_o If those files are critical, they should be backed up in multiple locations. But if you cannot recall, are those files really critical? Regardless, one day a drive will fail and those files will be lost. Critical data should be backed up in multiple locations.

I only have a single NVMe SSD installed that is almost out of space so I cannot dualboot

How do you intend to switch to Linux without available disk space? It is possible to install and boot Linux from an external drive but performance will obviously suffer. But any way you get Linux running, if it’s on the same computer and if your Windows drives are not encrypted, you should have access to them from Linux. There is no need to copy them or move them if Linux is on another drive but on the same computer. Simply installing Linux will not risk the data, as long as you don’t format the wrong partition. You can leave it there and probably access it from Linux to do what you want with it.

I can make use of an external HDD during the transfer.

Why not backup the critical data on an external HDD?

Please don’t tell me I have to copy and paste all files by hand because given the criticality of the stored data I would rather stay in Windows than risking data loss.

Erm, how do you proceed when you change your computer with Windows? Do you use specialized software to “migrate” your data for you? And if you want an automatic way to do it, how would you ensure the automatic way did it correctly? If this is what stops you from migrating, maybe it’s preferable to keep things as they are for you?! Maybe try a live USB drive environment instead of installing?!

In any way, seeing your other replies, I can only strongly encourage you to make proper backups as this may one day save your critical data, and also facilitate any future PC or OS migration.

I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful or positive but if you made a mess and want to make sure you don’t lose anything, you may want to start by cleaning up, know what you have, where it is, and have it in multiple locations. Then you can start thinking about migrating without worrying about the data.

And that’s how you learn that Lemmy is full people that can’t tolerate diversity. I can read that person’s comments just fine but apparently others downvote and whine.

And they don’t even need to learn another language, just a letter. But alas, I guess this is very hard to do.

I grew up with DOS and used Windows 1 (barely, DOS was better), 3.1, 95, 98, etc… But curiosity made me try a bunch of OS in the beginning of the 2000s, like BeOS, QNX, and Linux (Kheops, Mandrake, SuSE). I dual booted for many years, keeping Linux as my main OS but having to boot Windows for games. I preferred Linux but I was pretty much OS agnostic for a while. I even worked as level 1 tech support for many years, helping people with Windows and Office products.

But then came Windows 8, 10, and now 11, + Office 365 + OneDrive. It’s very difficult to stand any of those new versions, with the ads, the constant peddling for Microsoft products, the “forced” login with a Microsoft account, the updates whenever they feel like it if you don’t pay enough for Windows, if the updates are not breaking something. A few years ago I was helping a friend and discovered a version of Windows 7 where you can’t even change the wallpaper.

TBF, I knew it was coming. Anyone in IT knew for years that Microsoft planned of having everything subscription based. To me, every new versions of Windows or Office, or Teams, is now more intolerable than the previous one.

Anyway, at some point I stopped gaming/dual booting and pretty much kept exclusively on Linux. My workplace used Windows, and I use Linux at home. I’ve been using Debian for 15 years now and despite minor issues with sound recently, since pipewire, every time I use Windows, I’m reminded of how much worse it could be.

Recently I quit my job as a level 1 tech. I can’t help people with Microsoft products anymore. Having calls from people telling me they cannot delete files from their OneDrive when it tells them it’s full, then discover it’s a bug and users with their drives full cannot delete anything, is just disconcerting. Before all that, I could at least see/understand the reason why things were working like they did; I could help and explain it to the users. Now, I’m as frustrated as they are when I use Microsoft products.

A decade ago I was whining to my friends that I didn’t like Steam because I was using Linux and Steam was really shitty on that OS at some point. I remember not being able to get the correct keyboard layout in chats, and tons of little annoyances, like not being able to choose where you install games. It was disappointing.

As someone that loves FOSS, I never really liked the model of “not owning my games” but I must admit that it works for most people that don’t care about such things. Valve made huge progress with Steam for Linux over the years, and Proton was indeed a game changer.

I have to tip my hat to them.

We don’t need leaks to know that. Just look at the Israelis deliberately stopping aid and food trucks going into Gaza. It’s not just Bibi. Most of the Israelis seem very okay with this, and some even participate into blocking food and aid. So, no surprise there.

EDIT: Oh and let’s not forget the Israelis that are organizing BBQs on the side of the border. I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding.

I was using E16 years ago and liked it but eventually switched to Gnome (2, I think), after waiting for E17 for too long.

What made me quit was the wait. All the other DEs at the time were releasing new versions frequently but Enlightenment took forever.

I usually do. This was from my google news feed, which opens in Chrome. I could have opened it with FF, which has uBlock origin, but it’s not worth it.

I just got mildly infuriated when this crap appeared.

I though this was the place for this but apparently not. I’ll delete the post and never try posting anything on lemmy again. Have a nice day.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought that something with that title could have been an Onion article. And to me that’s what “Not The Onion” is all about.

It doesn’t suffice that it’s simply a real article, it must make people wonder if it’s satire or not.

In your case, maybe if it was worded differently, but the way it is, it doesn’t make me think it could be something I confused for an Onion headline.

He just changed his reason to “Make America rich again”. Apparently he forgot about the drugs thing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/trump-order-tariffs-steel-aluminum-b2695793.html

From what I have seen when she orders doordash, it’s also a hassle to get something fixed (because it happens often), and half the people will not eat at the same time than others, because the order is half wrong and they will deliver the rest, eventually.

I guess if you’re always ordering alone it’s not a big issue, but she’s always ordering multiple meals and I can’t recall one time where it all went smoothly. There is always something wrong that has to be fixed, gotta contact them, get it fixed, it takes time and not everyone has their food at the same time.

From my perspective, it just sucks to order for a group with doordash. It would be better to just have one or a few people of the group to go get the food directly at the restaurant.

I really can’t understand people that live in a city with restaurants close to them, and still being unable to get off their ass and walk/cycle/drive to get their food.

The only time I order food directly from restaurants is when I’m in the countryside or a rural area with friends or family, and the to and fro time would be unacceptably long if I’d go grab it myself.

My sister uses doordash and there’s always something wrong. Yet she insists on trying again and again, and I can’t understand why.

I have never used them or Uber or others like this, and refuse to do so. They exploit their workers, they charge exorbitant fees, and when something’s wrong, it’s nobody’s fault.

If I want food, I go get it myself. I’m my own delivery boy! And contrary to a lot of people delivering food, I will not park on a sidewalk or in a bike lane.

Lately, Firefox + uBlock Origin and YouTube on Linux is sometimes horribly slow for me. It uses all the CPU and chokes my computers. Sometimes it’s even difficult to just seek in the video, as it’s so sluggish.

It seems to vary depending on the type of ads. It’s not “random” because a video that has this behavior will always do it, even if I restart FF, while others will be fine.

I thought it was my old computer at first, or that I was out of memory, but the same thing happens on my modern Ryzen.

Although I notice it less and less, so maybe it was a bug with YT + uBlock.

And it’s only on my Linux computers. On Android, FF + uBlock works super well.

My pet peeve about ads everywhere now is on Android.

Your Android phone doesn’t come with a voice recorder? Download one, with ads every time you record.

You want a different calculator? Ads!

Flashlight app? Ads!

Notepad? Ads!

And people just apparently accept ads in nearly every app, even the most basic ones.

I don’t remember the Sound Recorder, or Notepad having ads. But because people are now used to ads everywhere, it’s certainly coming as MS is trying to jam ads in everywhere possible in Windows too, now.

I’m so grateful for Linux. The apps I get through apt-get don’t make me watch ads. Unfortunately even if based on Linux, the Android world is so infuriatingly crammed with ads.

I wish I could find a “phone” or portable device in that format, with an OS that works like “true” Linux.

If enough people voted, the Democrats would have given people free health care, stopped financing wars, torture and genocide, improve public transit, boost public education, and lowered the cost of groceries. If only enough people voted for the Democrats, they could be in power and bring change. They just need a super majority to install a welfare state and turn into pacifists. Of course!

I’ve been using MATE since Gnome 3. I really liked the simplicity of Gnome 2 and was unable to adapt to their “new” way so I switched to MATE and it just clicked. I tried Gnome 3 a few times again but I just can’t.

As for why MATE instead of XFCE or others? Because I already used and tried XFCE in the past and prefered Gnome 2’s look and feel. In fact, I have been going out of my way for years to keep every app using GTK2 and my favourite theme because I like how it looks and feel, and Gnome 3 and GTK3 broke this. So MATE it was. They switched to GTK3 too eventually but it gave my time to adjust.

My only “complaints” about it are the file manager Caja, and the way you can list windows, which both feel very basic. I would like those two to get better.

I try and use different DE from time to time, from Fluxbox to E17, but I just go back to MATE. My favorite DE of all time was E16 but it took waaay too long for E17 to be functional and I ended up keeping MATE.

I face the same specific issue. I started with the French (Canada) layout years ago but now Windows sets the default to Multilingual/CSA because it has been made the official one by the government a number of years ago.

So now everyone that got used the “old” one has to fiddle with keyboard settings every time they use a new Windows session/computer.

And it’s not exactly a breeze to switch, as Windows often keeps the multilingual one and switches back to it when you use a different application. Gotta make sure to delete the multilingual and leave only one layout. It’s a real annoyance.

Microsoft uses some of these. I remember having to do something like that to setup a minecraft account and at some point I thought I would just give up and lose my money.

Not in rescue mode. If you can’t mount your root partition because something was fudged in /etc/fstab, for example, you may be stuck in recovery and depending on your distribution, it may not have nano in that minimalist mode.

For me it also happens when I install a VM of Debian using the small image, on my dedicated server in a data center. The company hosting the server requires a special network configuration and AFAIK, there’s only vi. So i need to use the console to access the VM and from there, edit /etc/network/something with vi to setup the network. Once done I can reboot and install the rest of the software over the network, including nano.

I’ve been using Linux for more than two decades. Before nano I was using pico, but it also required to have pine/alpine installed. So knowing the basics of vi has often been helpful over the years for me.

Maybe it’s because I like tinkering with VMs and SBCs, and most people will not encounter situations where they don’t have nano, but it can happen. And you’ll be glad to know at least “i” and “:wq!”.