I cannot actually reproduce what caused your problem in detail, and I still stumble over the "everything" in
and then restored everything from an earlier backup using rsync
since this ain't clear: your directory you keep your LibreOffice files in, your /home/, or your whole system?
To me it seems, there are several things mixed up, that need to be cleared:
- LibreOffice is a HUGE beast. Personally I don't really like any of this "Office" garbage, and I have LO only for being compatible with other users' office-garbage files. However, I experienced many updates made this thing instable. When I have to use it I always nervously wait for this thing suddenly crashes anytime for no obvious reason. Like Gimp to me LO ain't no software I'd rate 'reliably solid rock stable' - too complex, too many features, too many people fumbling with it, trying to enshittify it even more with even more BS features instead of making it to work reliably stable. I also seen LO crash by just only moving the mouse. However:
- But anyway, may it as it be: LO does not make your system also become instable. (At least I never experienced that by now.) That's a Windows experience. Maybe it froze your GUI, so you had not chance anymore doing anything with KB and mouse on the desktop/WM. Sometimes such things happen - even with other programs. The unix way then was to switch to TTY - the not-GUI terminal, by pressing [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[F1], or better [F2] (by default there is 1..9, while 1 is the main system's one, producing system messages, which can be annoying while using it. And on 9 lives your GUI {which is currently crashed.}. so better chose one from 2...8.) When your user started the X session, he is also allowed to teminate and restart it. Otherwise login as root, and terminate and restart the X Server. If you don't know how to do this, simply let root reboot.
- In most cases the job is done this way. There may be again a crash by the same program at the same situation, but the first thing normally to do then was to update your package tree, and maybe even your system.
- Comparing to Windows and all Linux I experienced by now FreeBSD is by far the most tolerant one - even if things messed up very badly still coming up at least to a state where you can fix things. But even so like all others it also depends on the versions of the system and the software packages have to be congruent to run stable.
- Most troubles most people have with FreeBSD running not stable, or suddenly not booting properly anymore come from they are messing things up themselves: Using STABLE or even CURRENT (those are still under development, not yet finished, not released, not to be meant to be used) instead of RELEASE, while they don't really know what they are actually dealing with, and how to correctly deal with it, or mixing packages and ports, not seldom from different versions. And in most cases FreeBSD still runs stable - tolerant. Until it's finally messed up that far it simply cannot anymore. Then things need to be cleaned up, which can also be done. But like no reasonable person start to clean a messed up room by using a flamethrower, cleaning up can be a task. And one thing you may learn from it is next time or in future better keep things in order in the first place.
- Trying to solve software instability issues, above all the OS by restoring from backups is not simply done by just ironing files of an former, older version over the current ones. Even this is more kind of brute force this can actually work, when you do it right. But apart from that it's not the #1 how to solve things. You can create a lot of mismatches, version conflicts, files missing/changed....messing things up only even more. So, if, what I suspect, with "everything" you meant you also tried to "repair" your system by restoring an older version by copying back via rsync, then I guess THAT was the reason you damaged your system the way it will not start anymore properly.
- Normally there are no reasons to backup and restore the system - its config files you edited, yes. And there are actually reasons you do backups of the system and restore (e.g. jails), or for testing porpuses by using snapshots (ZFS), but then you better know what you're doing, and how it works. Besides restoring from BU ain't not the common way to repair a system became defective over time. Doing a fresh new installation was the way of choice when the system is messed up. And especially rsync was not #1 tool to handle those for the main system. Rsync is pretty nice to create copies of directories as backups, but when it comes to restoration you better took a closer look at its manpage, to set all its options right. Depending on those options rsync either overwrites files or keep them, depending on which one is newer, and if you told it to do so or not. Your system's files in the backup are naturally older or max equally old than the ones on the running system. By default (-a archive mode) rsync does not overwrite newer files with older version, which in this case that way you produce a mix of new files of your current system, and old ones from your BU source. That was a pretty mess indeed.
However, anyway:
Such things can and will happen with any OS. The difference simply is, if you are willing and capable to take control in your own hands, which then means learning.
We all messed up the one or the other system
badly [Largest kill I heard so far is the story SirDice sometimes tells.] Many the things you read here come from the same experience once made by others: "
...
...!F#c4
!!!
" -
That's a good way to learn. It's part of it. Once you understood what was its cause, you will never do this mistake again. Valuable experience made, which would be lost, when you change the system.
Most important part is to have backups of all of
your files: all files you created, edited, downloaded... on a extra storage device not affected by the system.
If so, nothing really serious can happen at all, apart from you may need to set up a new system.
If not, that was you #1 top priority most urgent job to realize before anything else at all, doesn't matter what operating system or flavor you are using.
.