Timeshift stuck in USB Recovery only mode and latest source won't build

[Dan-Essin]

On Fedora 35
I was counting of Timeshift as part of my backup strategy but When I install it (from the dnf repo) it opens in USB Recovery Mode. Obviously never prompts for backup location and won't backup anything.

Tried building from latest source timeshift-21.09.1
Build fails

➜ timeshift-21.09.1 make
cd src; make all
make[1]: Entering directory '/root/Downloads/timeshift-21.09.1/src'
Package vte-2.91 was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing vte-2.91.pc' to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable Package 'vte-2.91', required by 'virtual:world', not found /bin/bash: line 1: test: -lt: unary operator expected Package gtk+-3.0 was not found in the pkg-config search path. Perhaps you should add the directory containing gtk+-3.0.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
Package 'gtk+-3.0', required by 'virtual:world', not found
/bin/bash: line 1: test: -gt: unary operator expected
#timeshift-gtk
valac -X -D'GETTEXT_PACKAGE="timeshift"'
--Xcc="-lm" --Xcc="-O3" -D VTE_291
Core/.vala Gtk/.vala Utility/.vala Utility/Gtk/.vala
-o timeshift-gtk
--pkg glib-2.0 --pkg gio-unix-2.0 --pkg posix
--pkg gee-0.8 --pkg json-glib-1.0 --pkg gio-2.0
--pkg gtk+-3.0 --pkg vte-2.91
error: Package gee-0.8' not found in specified Vala API directories or GObject-Introspection GIR directories error: Package vte-2.91' not found in specified Vala Atimeshift-21.09.1PI directories or GObject-Introspection GIR directories
Compilation failed: 2 error(s), 0 warning(s)
make[1]: *** [makefile:53: app-gtk] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/root/Downloads/timeshift-21.09.1/src'
make: *** [makefile:2: all] Error 2
------timeshift-21.09.1
gee can't be installed by dnf - it is unrecognized. Implies it is part of vala (whatever that is)

vala anad vte are apparently obsolete as far as timeshift is concerned but I can't find any obvious way to update them.timeshift-21.09.1

Package vala-0.54.3-1.fc35.x86_64 is already installed.
ackage vte-0.28.2-35.fc35.x86_64 is already installed.

Why would you make the build depend on modules that are not generally and readily available?

I have removed and reinstalled it several times with the same results.
Why is it stuck in USB Mode?
Why isn't there a setting option to specify the timeshift device?
Why isn't there a way in settings to force it out of USB mode?

[oprizal]

You could use latest Timeshift for Fedora 35 here

https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/oprizal/timeshift-upstream/

Or if you want to build it yourself from the sources on Fedora please refer to this article:

https://gist.github.com/oprizal/d9e9b259a81b0afc8107f89f76a19547

For Timeshift developer @teejee2008 if what I did by building the app broke the license, please let me know. I'll modify or delete the repo on the Fedora Copr.

I just want to help other to use Timeshift on Fedora 35 since the latest one from the official Fedora repo was oldest version that failed to read the partition layout (I guess about newer lsblk things).

[teejee2008]

@Dan-Essin
The version in Fedora 35 repository is very outdated.

@oprizal
Thanks for packaging it for Fedora