this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2026
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Linux

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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 19 hours ago) by Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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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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[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

As others say, where the use cases are so specific to each machine, it'll be a headache juggling all of those images if your needs and workflow change down the road.

But I'd be remiss to say I don't practice a form of what you mention, I would go insane if I actually had to reinstall from distro defaults. I have a single perfected VM image with customizations and software common to all of my machines. And yes, if you were to go this route, there are little quirks to iron out manually each time I image to a new machine, even old and well-supported ones. Some just cosmetic, some preventing graphical output. Although still much less time than setting up from scratch.

It works well enough for me, but it also frankly leads to a poorly-documented system that will accumulate cruft with updates, and can't propagate changes in the VM to my existing systems easily, so I'm interested too to see what other people here suggest. Particularly for those niche customizations that land outside of /home and /etc (e.g. /usr/fonts, packages not provided by the distro).