20
The standard backup question
(lemmy.ml)
Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 59000 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.
What kind of changes? Package installation, removal and configuration? Use
apt-mark showmanual
to save list of manually installed packages,dpkg --get-selections | grep 'deinstall$'
to save list of removed packages,debconf --get-selections
to save debconf package settings, backup files that you edited in/etc
. This should be enough for restoration, wouldn't take a long time for backup and avoid risk of filesystem inconsistency.