Leo

<div class="trix-content"> <div>I haven't done a full-system backup since back in the olden days before <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/">Dropbox</a> and Git. Every machine I now own is treated as a stateless, disposable unit that can be stolen, lost, or corrupted without consequences. The combination of full-disk encryption and distributed copies of all important data means there's just no stress if anything bad happens to the computer.</div><div><br>But don't mistake this for just a "everything is in the cloud" argument. Yes, I use Dropbox and GitHub to hold all the data that I care about, but the beauty of these systems is that they work with local copies of that data, so with a couple of computers here and there, I always have a recent version of everything, in case either syncing service should go offline (or away!).<br><br></div><div>The trick to making this regime work is to stick with it. This is especially true for Dropbox. It's where everything of importance needs to go: documents, images, whatever. And it's instantly distributed on all the machines I run. Everything outside of Dropbox is essentially treated as a temporary directory that's fully disposable.<br><br></div><div>It's from this principle that I built <a href="https://omarchy.org/">Omarchy</a> too. Given that I already had a way to restore all data and code onto a new machine in no time at all, it seemed so unreasonable that the configuration needed for a fully functional system still took hours on end. Now it's all encoded in an ISO setup that installs in two minutes on a fast computer.<br><br></div><div>Now it's true that this method relies on both multiple computers and a fast internet connection. If you're stuck on a rock in the middle of nowhere, and you somehow haven't discovered the glory of Starlink, maybe just stick to your old full-disk backup ways. But if you live in the modern world, there ought to be no reason why a busted computer is a calamity of data loss or a long restore process.</div> </div>