BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and encryption

Re:BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and e... by leaving on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @01:57AM (#34158277)

I don't understand why creators of projects like this obscure the basics. Important things you need to tell me:

(1) The file I download is a command-line executable. I have to chnmod +x before I can use it. Why not share that small fact?

(2) How do I create a simple repository *with no encryption*. Yes, I want to start there. Why do you think I want to get a PhD in your project before trying it? No, I don't want to start by creating encryption keys; that comes later. Start with the basic, basic, basic instructions.

(3) Why did I export that environment variable? I never used it, did I? Not so far as I can tell. Is that basic? No, it is not.

(4) What does recreate do? Is it necessary? "borg rcreate --help" does *not* provide any help on the encryption options. It just provides an error.

Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Can you not imagine what it is like to come into an open source project with no experience and no knowledge of the matter whatsoever?

Is it machismo? Is it elitism?

What, in the name of God, prevents you from saying, "This is my project. It does this. This is the "hello world" method of trying it. Here are some cool options once you have the basics.

It happens almost all the time. I seriously don't know what is wrong with you.

Edit: I had to search forever to find the keyword "none" that you can put after the "-e" parameter. Found it by trial and error. It's in the docs, but, Jesus, people, can you not imagine for a moment that someone might be testing this on not the latest hardware and want to see how it runs without the complexity encryption first? You absolutely blow my mind. I don't know if you're putting me on, here. Do you not know how to communicate?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and e... by crossroadsguy on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @02:28AM (#34158473)

I agree. Borg (and restic as well - though it fares better than borg in usability), even after tinkering with it for years, remained essentially useless for me until Vorta (a borg gui) came along.

https://vorta.borgbase.com is awesome. Simple and awesome. I wish it gains more exposure.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and e... by dikei on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @02:08AM (#34158353)

You're welcome to read the Quick Start docs, it's pretty short

https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/1.2-maint/quickstart.ht...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and e... by sigtstp on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @02:47AM (#34158589)

It can be very difficult to step outside one's own area of expertise and see things from an outsider or beginner perspective. Things that are obvious for you aren't for others. This is true for many fields. Builders especially are "saturated" with their perspective of internals, not necessarily of the end user. There's nothing wrong with them, this is normal. And without (constructive) feedback, they're unlikely to see things differently. I know venting can feel good, but why not use the time to instead contact whoever wrote the docs and offer some (less strongly worded) feedback?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and e... by lovelearning on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @02:55AM (#34158641)

The chmod step's explained both on their demo page and the installation page[1]. Dev-authored docs can often be frustrating but shortage of attention among readers is something that authors can't solve. The rant about putting you on is absolutely unnecessary.

[1] https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/installation.htm...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and e... by waon on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @03:28AM (#34158843)

I wish the authors won't be demotivated by this if they ever see this top comment. Borg is such an invaluable project done by volunteers. They don't deserve the blatant abuse demonstrated by the OP. Even more so when the reasons are either the OP ignoring a well written documentation or some unreasonable demand to degrade the security of the software by prominently showing how to disable encryption for a remote backup system. The notion that having the setup command generate encryption keys is so "elitist" that it warrants abusive insults is ... beyond me.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and e... by n3storm on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @03:11AM (#34158751)

I don't understand why powerusers think their are sysadmins and then complain about documentation is for sysadmins and not for powerusers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and e... by aborsy on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @03:40AM (#34158905)

Some of these are like alphabets in software, eg, chmod. You need to understand permissions, a bit of bash scripting (copy from examples in their website), etc.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:BorgBackup, Deduplicating archiver with compression and e... by demelek on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @05:26AM (#34159497)

> It happens almost all the time. I seriously don't know what is wrong with you.

I'm wondering what's wrong with people thinking authors of open source software owe them something – anything. I really don't understand how people with a shred of decency can feel like this an appropriate way to behave.

People writing software and putting it out there for free can focus on whatever they like. And, for many, writing software is much more fun than documenting it. This might be unfortunate but is totally fine, given the nature of such projects. If you want better docs, write you're (almost) always welcome to write and contribute them.

[ Parent | on HN ]