Arch Linux

Zepfanman

Member

Registered: 2026-02-07

Posts: 2

Website

Snapper and BTRFS Assistant help needed for initial install

In my first attempt to set up snapper, I managed to break Arch from booting up. I was able to get the OS running again, but now I'm afraid of doing something even worse. Some highly-guided help would be appreciated!

LINUX BEGINNER, but long-time Windows sysadmin. More comfortable with GUI tools than learning so many terminal commands at the moment. Sorry, not sure exactly what logs to post here.

Essentially, I'm really just wanting a "system state" restoration option with Snapper/BTRFS Assistant. So I can roll back something like 10 iterations if I install something and want to roll back.

I followed this YouTube guide about a week ago to set up a dual-boot with Windows, which is why partitions 2 through 5 might be distracting. It was also my basis for btrfs subvolumes, which I frankly don't understand very well. https://youtu.be/9jTk3K3ExaI

Nvme1n1 will be my data drive, which I will back up separately from Snapper.

zram0       253:0    0   7.3G  0 disk [SWAP]
nvme1n1     259:0    0   1.8T  0 disk 
nvme0n1     259:1    0 476.9G  0 disk 
├─nvme0n1p1 259:2    0   260M  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p2 259:3    0    16M  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p3 259:4    0 152.5G  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p4 259:5    0     2G  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p5 259:6    0     2G  0 part [SWAP]
├─nvme0n1p6 259:7    0   600M  0 part /boot
└─nvme0n1p7 259:8    0 319.5G  0 part /var/log
                                      /var/cache/pacman/pkg
                                      /home
                                      /.snapshots
                                      /

What would be the recommended step-by-step to get my snapshots working properly? BTRFS Assistant has given me various errors when I try to configure Snapper and "Snapper Settings" tabs. Currently I have zero snapshots.

Thanks in advance.

Arch: rolling
64-bit, xfce 4.20, gtk 3.24.51, kernel 6.18.9-arch1-2, windowing X11, Intel Ultra 7 255Hx16, 14.5GiB memory, Mesa Intel gpu 14.5 GiB.

Last edited by Zepfanman (2026-02-22 23:10:00)

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~ J. J. ~ Linux newb 2026! Zepfanman.com - my blog, mostly movies and music ~

gromit

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From: Germany

Registered: 2024-02-10

Posts: 1,499

Website

Re: Snapper and BTRFS Assistant help needed for initial install

What exactly broke when you initially set it up? Also please preferably follow the wiki for setups like this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Snappe … figuration

I'm using snapper for regular snapshot creation, works quite well and the setup was not complicated (just generated the default config, added my retention rules and enabled the two timers)

Zepfanman

Member

Registered: 2026-02-07

Posts: 2

Website

Re: Snapper and BTRFS Assistant help needed for initial install

What exactly broke when you initially set it up? Also please preferably follow the wiki for setups like this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Snappe … figuration

Thank you for your reply. I thought that YouTube video was setting up the subvolumes and snapshots automatically, so that was my first mistake.

Iirc, what broke the setup was going into Btrfs Assistant, deleting the config in "Snapper Settings" tab, and deleting @snapshots in "Subvolumes" tab. I figured out how to get @snapshots back, so this is my current setup (identical to my initial setup):

I've read through the Arch wiki Snapper page you linked to several times, but I'm not sure what commands to use in the "Note":

If you installed Arch using the suggested Btrfs partition layout from archinstall version older than 3.0.5 [1] then the @.snapshots subvolume will already be mounted to /.snapshots, and the snapper create-config command will fail [2]. To use the @.snapshots subvolume for Snapper backups, do the following:

    Unmount the @.snapshots subvolume and delete the existing mountpoint.
    Create the Snapper config.
    Delete the subvolume created by Snapper.
    Re-create the /.snapshots mount point and re-mount the @.snapshots subvolume.

Here's what I tried today. Not sure how to "delete the existing mountpoint" as instructed above:

[jaige@dualarchjj ~]$ sudo snapper -c jjrestore create-config /
Creating config failed (creating btrfs subvolume .snapshots failed since it already exists).
[jaige@dualarchjj ~]$ sudo umount -R /.snapshots
[jaige@dualarchjj ~]$ sudo snapper -c jjrestore create-config /
Creating config failed (creating btrfs subvolume .snapshots failed since it already exists).

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~ J. J. ~ Linux newb 2026! Zepfanman.com - my blog, mostly movies and music ~