BRU 2000 for X11

Along with the ability to do backups on the spot, you can also save backup definitions and schedule them to be run at any time. This ability is essential for any long-term backup strategy. The xbru interface for this option was very easy to understand. Another nice option that came with xbru was a utility to configure the /etc/brutab file. This is beta software so it isn't mentioned in the documentation. Hopefully, by the time this review is published, a final version of this software will be available.

I would recommend xbru for someone who wants to do backups of a home computer but nothing much more complicated. (Don't get xbru confused with BRU 2000's command-line interface which is quite powerful and robust—see below.) It is easy to use and doesn't require you to go digging through lots of documentation before you use it. I managed to use nearly all of its features without having to look in the manual.

xbru is an interface to the original, command-line BRU backup software. BRU is a very flexible and powerful backup program. It is much more reliable than tar and friends, supporting CRC error detection and automatic verification after backup to ensure that you don't have a bad tape. You can schedule backups to run automatically and even change the tapes in an auto-loading tape drive for multi-tape backups. BRU backs up all types of files: device files, sparse files, pipes, soft and hard links, etc. The list of features is too long for me to cover here. For a full review of BRU, see “BRU—Backup & Restore Utility”, Linux Journal, March 1995, Issue 11.

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