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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Should I back up perfectly set up distros and restore them on another computer with Clonezilla? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) by Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works to c/linux@lemmy.ml

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi everyone!

I now have 4 computers running Linux, each with an almost perfectly set up distro (which took days to perfect) and would want to create backups so that I can move and restore these between all of my computers.

Here is a list of my computers:

Surface Go 1 128gb SSD 8gb of Ram running Fedora Silverblue

MacBook Pro 2012 (upgraded with 512gb SSD and 16gb of Ram) running Pop!_OS

NUC7i3DNB 128gb SSD 8gb of Ram running LibreELEC

Steam Deck LCD 256 SSD 16gb of Ram running Steam OS

I was planning on using Clonezilla to create backups of these, store them somewhere (kDrive and external hard drive) and be able to restore these between each of these (and my future) computers if needed.

I've succesfully used Clonezilla in the past, but I've also encountered a dead end issue when trying to restore my Surface Go 1 backup on an old Acer (probably 5737Z) I had lying around. I don't remember what the problem was, but something related to UEFI and EFI legacy stuff I think..

So, as all these computers are quite different and not all of them so Linux friendly, I wanted to know if you think I'll encounter issues when trying to move installs between them or not.

In order to save space, I'd probably shrink every partition so that it's the same size as the data it contains and then extend it again once restored on another computer.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Edit: Thanks for your help. In the end, I think I’ll keep building installation tutorials for myselt to be able to reproduce my distros and might one day try NixOs on one of my computers

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[–] Cyber@feddit.uk 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Consider your perfect settings as the part you want to keep (as well as all your documents etc, of course), but the OS will change.

Tomorrow you'll do an update and 2 applications and 10 libraries are now newer... so you probably don't want to store a "golden image" for too long without redoing it to consider all the updates.

Now... with that situation in mind, it's generally easier to just do a clean install of the distro and reapply your settings.

So, depending on what you've setup, installed, tweaked & configured, saving that can be done with config files in /etc and /home and maybe a 1-liner for applications to install.

That will be smaller and more easily reproducable on all your hardware (and maybe some VMs)

How you do that depends on what you've changed and your skills... maybe bash, maybe ansible, maybe just copying files - whatever makes sense to you.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

maybe ansible

I've done Ansible professionally for 3 years, now. I've used puppet, chef/cinc, I've played with mgmtconfig, and I've built entire ecosystems out of cron+make+rpm since 2002, 6 years before 'devops' had a name.

Don't use Ansible. EVERYTHING ELSE is better. Please consider any option before it. Strongly consider mgmtconfig.

[–] Cyber@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

Not heard of mgmtconfig, I'll take a look.

What's the benefit over Ansible?

Most of my home is setup (& maintained) via Ansible (I have a few Pi Zeros scattered around the place with the same monitoring setup installed) but I've not found a nice solution to doing setup locally, then reproducing on Ansible, then testing, then refining... if there's a shortcut to that I'd be interested!