Linux updates with an undo function? Some distros have it!
When you upgrade your PC, some things might not work properly anymore. Luckily, some Linux distributions offer the ability to go back in time and recover from damage. Mint does this with Timeshift, while other smaller distros also provide this feature.
Mint’s Timeshift is a utility that can make snapshots of your system files using copy-on-write (COW) or rsync. However, most file systems don’t support snapshotting yet. Btrfs is the most mature file system for snapshots, so it’s used by SUSE’s Snapper and openSUSE.
Other distros like Garuda Linux, Spiral Linux, siduction, and Linux Deepin also have similar features. Vanilla OS has a dual-root-volume setup with LVM, while ChromeOS uses two read-only root partitions to automatically roll back to the previous version if something goes wrong.
The main issue with Snapper is that it’s usually deployed on Btrfs, which can be fragile. It’s easy to fill up the root partition with snapshots, and there are no safe repair tools for Btrfs. We hope to see implementations of snapshots and rollback on OpenZFS and bcachefs soon.
In summary, while some Linux distributions offer the ability to undo updates and recover from damage, most don’t. There are several file systems that support snapshotting, including Btrfs, OpenZFS, and bcachefs.
Source: https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/01/linux_rollback_options/