Which directories should I backup in Linux?

I’m not even sure I can identify that 4, but link there lists a huge number of others, however opinions varied. Some might apply to some setups, and others to others.

What does success mean? As I wrote in the linked topic, restores can be complex.
/home is probably easiest, done with apps down. OS files with OS up may be hard.
This is a limitation of any file based backup as compared to images handled offline.
If anyone’s given a guaranteed way to restore OS files into live OS, I’d like to know.

Generally, OS and OS config can be done from scratch, although records can help.
Personal data can’t be replaced as easily, so that, IMO, is the main thing to protect.

I suppose you can guess the chance of that to guide the backup/restore planning.
For example, if you give 75% chance it will go badly, maybe clone the drive first…
These are the sort of uncertain times when you’d rather have a VM with snapshot.

FWIW I’m not confirming anything because I haven’t done it.
Maybe someone else has, but this is a very YMMV situation.

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