Post #1770936

2026-04-29 00:16 UTC

I'm tired of conducting a web search for nearly everything of importance every day. Question: What are the steps for backing up (alternatively, transferring) everything to a USB connection from a terminal with no mouse input? #Linux #AskFedi

Replies (2)

@jchaven@social.sdf.org 2026-04-29 03:16

@shadowfals@toot.cat Can you be more specific?

Open ##3654247
@mark_pc@hachyderm.io 2026-04-29 05:44

@shadowfals@toot.cat Most modern file managers have keyboard navigation with the arrow keys, tab, enter, and the menu key (assuming your keyboard has one). Press alt+up to go to the parent directory so you can copy your entire home folder. You should be able to search for the file manager in the menu. Either the meta key (windows/option) or alt+f2. Failing that, the terminal command is: rsync -a /home The filepath of the USB drive will most likely be: /run/media// The autocomplete candidates should show up when you hit tab twice. If it's not mounted there, it's going to be somewhere in /media/ if rsync isn't installed, you can instead use: cp -r /home If for whatever reason you can't get to the terminal through the menu, the common keyboard shortcuts are ctrl+alt+t or meta+t. Failing that, you can get to a TTY terminal login with ctrl+alt+F3 (or the other F keys)

Open ##3654248