Imagine the following scenario:

I have an X session, under some desktop environment (KDE, Gnome,
XFCE, whatever) with lots of terminal emulators, and maybe applications,
open and running in different virtual desktops. Then the system is brough
down, maybe intentionally or just accidentally - e.g because of a power
blackout.

Are there any frameworks/desktop environments/mechanisms/whatever
to recover the desktop state as closely as possible to what it was? At
the very least, I would like to recover my terminal emulators in the
state that they were, as far as their history is concerned, the location
they were at, and the state they were at - e.g. if I happened to have an
editor session in one of them, that session should be recovered with all
of its internal buffers, files, history, etc.

Can this at all be done?

On 18.05.2021 at 12:46, James H. Markowitz scribbled:

> Imagine the following scenario:
>
> I have an X session, under some desktop environment (KDE,
> Gnome, XFCE, whatever) with lots of terminal emulators, and maybe
> applications, open and running in different virtual desktops. Then
> the system is brough down, maybe intentionally or just accidentally -
> e.g because of a power blackout.
>
> Are there any frameworks/desktop
> environments/mechanisms/whatever to recover the desktop state as
> closely as possible to what it was? At the very least, I would like
> to recover my terminal emulators in the state that they were, as far
> as their history is concerned, the location they were at, and the
> state they were at - e.g. if I happened to have an editor session in
> one of them, that session should be recovered with all of its
> internal buffers, files, history, etc.
>
> Can this at all be done?

Some of the desktop environments allow for sessions to be stored and
restored upon login, but when it comes to terminal applications, the
mechanism must be provided for by the individual applications.

Some editors for instance — e.g. nano, emacs, possibly vim — allow for
intermediate automatic storing, and while you would need to reopen the
editor after logging in again, you would at least get your work back in
its last state of editing before the crash.

The mechanism for this is of course the use of temporary files, but
then it remains to be seen whether those temporary files are stored on
a persistent storage medium, or under /tmp, which in many distributions
is a tmpfs.

--
With respect,
= Aragorn

On Tue, 18 May 2021 15:28:52 +0200, Aragorn wrote:

> On 18.05.2021 at 12:46, James H. Markowitz scribbled:
>
>> Imagine the following scenario:
>>
>> I have an X session, under some desktop environment (KDE,
>> Gnome, XFCE, whatever) with lots of terminal emulators, and maybe
>> applications, open and running in different virtual desktops. Then the
>> system is brough down, maybe intentionally or just accidentally -
>> e.g because of a power blackout.
>>
>> Are there any frameworks/desktop
>> environments/mechanisms/whatever to recover the desktop state as
>> closely as possible to what it was? At the very least, I would like to
>> recover my terminal emulators in the state that they were, as far as
>> their history is concerned, the location they were at, and the state
>> they were at - e.g. if I happened to have an editor session in one of
>> them, that session should be recovered with all of its internal
>> buffers, files, history, etc.
>>
>> Can this at all be done?
>
> Some of the desktop environments allow for sessions to be stored and
> restored upon login, but when it comes to terminal applications, the
> mechanism must be provided for by the individual applications.
>
> Some editors for instance — e.g. nano, emacs, possibly vim — allow for
> intermediate automatic storing, and while you would need to reopen the
> editor after logging in again, you would at least get your work back in
> its last state of editing before the crash.
>
> The mechanism for this is of course the use of temporary files, but then
> it remains to be seen whether those temporary files are stored on a
> persistent storage medium, or under /tmp, which in many distributions is
> a tmpfs.

Thanks. It sounds like this is one of those things that is
potentially doable, but nobody has really attempted to pull it off in a
user-transparent way.

On Tue, 18 May 2021 13:33:47 +0000, James H. Markowitz wrote:

> On Tue, 18 May 2021 15:28:52 +0200, Aragorn wrote:
>
>> On 18.05.2021 at 12:46, James H. Markowitz scribbled:
>>
>>> Imagine the following scenario:
>>>
>>> I have an X session, under some desktop environment (KDE,
>>> Gnome, XFCE, whatever) with lots of terminal emulators, and maybe
>>> applications, open and running in different virtual desktops. Then the
>>> system is brough down, maybe intentionally or just accidentally -
>>> e.g because of a power blackout.
>>>
>>> Are there any frameworks/desktop
>>> environments/mechanisms/whatever to recover the desktop state as
>>> closely as possible to what it was? At the very least, I would like to
>>> recover my terminal emulators in the state that they were, as far as
>>> their history is concerned, the location they were at, and the state
>>> they were at - e.g. if I happened to have an editor session in one of
>>> them, that session should be recovered with all of its internal
>>> buffers, files, history, etc.
>>>
>>> Can this at all be done?
>>
>> Some of the desktop environments allow for sessions to be stored and
>> restored upon login, but when it comes to terminal applications, the
>> mechanism must be provided for by the individual applications.
>>
>> Some editors for instance — e.g. nano, emacs, possibly vim — allow for
>> intermediate automatic storing, and while you would need to reopen the
>> editor after logging in again, you would at least get your work back in
>> its last state of editing before the crash.
>>
>> The mechanism for this is of course the use of temporary files, but then
>> it remains to be seen whether those temporary files are stored on a
>> persistent storage medium, or under /tmp, which in many distributions is
>> a tmpfs.
>
> Thanks. It sounds like this is one of those things that is
> potentially doable, but nobody has really attempted to pull it off in a
> user-transparent way.

Use "screen" in your terminal sessions so you can resume those sessions
after reconnecting.

"James H. Markowitz" <noone@nowhere.net> writes:

> Are there any frameworks/desktop environments/mechanisms/whatever
> to recover the desktop state as closely as possible to what it was?

For the power loss case you could get a UPS and hibernate the system
when the battery goes low. I'm not aware of what would work for the
accidents.

On Tue, 18 May 2021 13:37:58 -0000 (UTC), Joe Beanfish wrote:
>
> On Tue, 18 May 2021 13:33:47 +0000, James H. Markowitz wrote:
>
>> Thanks. It sounds like this is one of those things that is
>> potentially doable, but nobody has really attempted to pull it off in a
>> user-transparent way.

Not all with the same mechanism.

At least GNOME knows sessions. May be gnome-session-properties needs to
be installed, then run it and select that you want to restore a previous
session.

Most web browsers also allow a crash recovery and offer to remember
opened tabs on shutdown.

Editors might remember where they left oft, leaving a temp-file behind if
a document wasn't saved properly.

> Use "screen" in your terminal sessions so you can resume those sessions
> after reconnecting.

screen won't survive a reboot.
--
Andreas

On Tue, 18 May 2021 17:39:20 +0300, Anssi Saari wrote:
>
> "James H. Markowitz" <noone@nowhere.net> writes:
>
>> Are there any frameworks/desktop environments/mechanisms/whatever
>> to recover the desktop state as closely as possible to what it was?
>
> For the power loss case you could get a UPS and hibernate the system
> when the battery goes low. I'm not aware of what would work for the
> accidents.

In case you run a notebook or laptop (on AC) and have a battery in it
"acts" like a UPS already - with no additional cost.
--
Andreas

On 5/18/21 8:08 AM, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Tue, 18 May 2021 17:39:20 +0300, Anssi Saari wrote:
>>
>> "James H. Markowitz" <noone@nowhere.net> writes:
>>
>>> Are there any frameworks/desktop environments/mechanisms/whatever
>>> to recover the desktop state as closely as possible to what it was?
>>
>> For the power loss case you could get a UPS and hibernate the system
>> when the battery goes low. I'm not aware of what would work for the
>> accidents.
>
> In case you run a notebook or laptop (on AC) and have a battery in it
> "acts" like a UPS already - with no additional cost.
>

Which is exactly why I use laptops besides the space required
to accommodate and cool tower or desktop.

bliss -“Nearly any fool can use a GNU/Linux computer. Many do.” After
all here I am...

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> writes:

> In case you run a notebook or laptop (on AC) and have a battery in it
> "acts" like a UPS already - with no additional cost.

Sure. I assumed this is not the case for the OP since he seemed worried
about accidental power loss.