My Mint 19 has crashed

[buster]

"For VMs, I'd suggestion using Virtualbox which has a snapshot ability for system images that you can revert to at any time."

While true, I can't imagine worrying about it with a virtual system the way I use it. Data gets backed up regularly, and I almost always have a few virtual OS's hanging about. Or a new install is minutes away.

I came across the timeshift problem on my old desktop that has 2 drives, a small solid state for mint, and an old win 7. Tried to use the Win7 to put my timeshift data from Mint.

It's almost always the data that's the big issue anyway.

[Jason]

Sometimes you just want to save time and hassle and you want to get back what you installed. I can revert a snapshot in Virtualbox with the full OS and data within a couple of minutes, far faster than it would take to reinstall (apply the myriad updates) and restore the data (that's going to be at least 15 minutes, probably more like 30-45 or longer). There's also all the customizing that many people do with their distros that would have to be re-done. I have time although I'd rather spend less of it doing boring tasks like reinstalling the same verson of distros and updating them. You like easy, right? This couldn't be easier. Here's how it works. Give it a try sometime, you might be surprised.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SAcqQjjMk0

Update: Edited a bit of my description to try and make it clear I'm talking about Virtualbox here, not Timeshift.

[buster]

" Give it a try sometime, you might be surprised."

Oh ye of little faith. I used it the time we found problems updating Mint 18 to 19. But that OS is installed on an honest to goodness hard drive.

[Jason]

You used the snapshot feature in virtualbox?

[buster]

Please Jason, re-read the last words of what I just wrote. (You go so quickly when you do things you are just a blur.)
I haven't used VB for many, many years.

[Jason]

Well, this is why I'm confused, Buster. I was talking about the snapshot feature in Virtualbox and suggesting you give it a try and then you say that you used it. Do you see my confusion?

I mistakenly made a typo which I've since corrected where I said timeshot instead of snapshot which may have led to some confusion. I can see where it was confusing and I corrected my verbiage so hopefully it's more clear now.

[ssfc72]

OK, so my Mint 19, today, showed that there were some Updates available and systemd was one of the upgrades.
So I did a Timeshift backup and I just saved it to the notebook computer, Linux partition.  If I experience the black screen, boot up, again, then I can just boot up Puppy Linux and retrieve the /timeshift directory, that was created.

So far the Mint Updates did not cause any problems. :-)

[fox]

Now if only it would run your scanner!

[Jason]

Bill bought a new scanner/printer/copier.