How to backup an Ubuntu system using Dropbox
How you do this depends on whether you are setting it up for the first time or want to restore already-saved files from Dropbox to their correct place.
First time (i.e. you have never used dropbox to backup your files)
- Install dropbox
- In the terminal, navigate to the Dropbox folder (probably
~/Dropbox) - Soft link to each directory you want to backup in dropbox (i.e.
ln -s ~/Documents .,ln -s ~/Desktop .). - That’s it: dropbox will now backup your files
Restoring (and then continuing to backup) previously stored files on a restored system
- Install dropbox
- Use selective Sync to download the directories you want to restore to the Dropbox folder on your local system
- Delete the folders you want to restore and then link from the Dropbox (sub)folders, e.g.
- rm -r ~/Documents
- ln -s ~/Dropbox/Documents ~/
- In the case of the Desktop, you may need to reboot the computer before you can see the result.
