Linux Mint is taking over development of Timeshift, a popular open-source backup tool.
Anyone familiar with Mint will be familiar with this utility. Timeshift is, as the distro’s own lead Clement Lefebvre says in the latest monthly update, a central plank in the system’s backup and update ‘strategy’.
Sadly, as happens, the creator of Timeshift is unable to keep working on it owing to other responsibilities. Not keen to see it stagnate, Mint says it ‘got in touch’ to see how they could help. Long story short: Linux Mint is assuming maintenance of the app henceforth.
And as part of the process Timeshift is becoming an official member of the XApp family (this is Mint’s stable of home-grown software it designs and develops to be distro-agnostic for widest possible use).
Timeshift is now an XApp
I’ve long been a fan of Mint’s attentive approach to shipping the kinds of apps people actually need and use on a day-today basis. Timeshift is one of those — but it’s not just a tool Mint users can use but one they are actively encouraged to use.
“A perfect system is a system where bugs and security flaws are fixed rapidly but where nothing that already worked ever starts to break. […] It’s a system where a a constant flow of code changes are applied to fix bugs and vulnerabilities but where a solid mechanism is in place to revert changes when regressions occur,” Lefebvre writes.
That mechanism in Linux Mint is Timeshift. Lefebvre calls it part of the distro’s “robust update strategy” that advises users to “Take snapshots, apply all updates” — regularly!
Expect further changes as Linux Mint 21 development continues.
- Source: Linux Mint blog
- (via: Neowin)