I have been watching with great interest, as people struggle with using the command shell to execute copy and paste lines of code, especially when trying to safely back up data. I was at once time, fairly happy with the SBackup utility, but became rather disillusioned with it once I tried to transfer my data over to another Ubuntu-based box. Then again, it does just what it claims – backs up your data for that specific machine.

But it was my quest to find a simple, fool-proof method of backing up my Evolution data without any hassle, that I found this script. On the surface, it’s quite clever. And provided me with the groundwork for a much more newbie friendly set of scripts that are quite frankly, brilliantly simple and foolproof.

I have written a set of scripts that will allow you to backup both your Evolution and Firefox data, allow for flawless transfer to a new Ubuntu box without any hassles, keeps everything in one set of ‘master folders’, makes recovery a snap, cleans up after itself and did I mention it is completely brainlessly simple to use?

I am also exploring putting this into Brandon‘s Leopard programming language to make transferability between the Linux and Windows desktop a little more seamless. It was either that or create a Bash to Batch file setup, which did not hold out a lot of appeal for me personally. No, I will likely use Leopard to create an application that can take a file with the Linux back-up in a Zipped folder, extract it and place them into the proper Windows folders – it should be pretty easy once you understand how to target the right folders. I am also exploring creating a similair program for Windows users, that will back-up only Firefox and Thunderbird data, but again using the Leopard programming language as it is cleaner than a rough and tumble Batch file.

Ah, but I digress, I still need some help, so here is where you come in. These newly created scripts, developed under the GPL(v2-3), need some reviewers who know squat about Linux, but want to have a safe backup of their Evolution and Firefox data on various GNOME based desktops like Ubuntu. My scripts are a little less complex than the one from tux-planet.fr and frankly, I have found them to be a lot less likely to overwrite something on accident as I put in some safeguards.

It is at this moment that I point out that I’m not even close to someone who maintains any skills with programming. That said, this is perhaps what makes what I have created all the more fascinating as this set of scripts work and work PERFECTLY on every box I have tested thus far. Those looking to beta test this for me, please email me here. Once I feel that it’s ready, I will release it to everyone – soon.

[tags]Linux, hard drive, backup[/tags]