System Restore Software

[cchester]

Hi,

I was wondering if in Kubuntu is there software or a way to create a system restore partition. For example I want to be able to install Kubuntu. Get all my hardware setup and running right. Then my desktop look and feel. Then have on it all the current updates at the time and all the software I usually install after installing Kubuntu.

That way if I ever want to restore it back to the way I had it before I did anything else after that I can. Something like Dell and other OEM's do when they put computers together nowadays with Windows. You can hit F10 or something and it puts the computer back to factory defaults.

If anyone has info that would be great.

Thanks.

[MoonRise]

Re: System Restore Software

I'd be interested in a response to this as well. Good question.

[3vi1]

Re: System Restore Software

I'm no expert, but what I've always done is install everything (just as you mentioned) then boot from a Knoppix CD and use partimage to backup the partitions to an external drive. That's usually what I do right before a major upgrade too.

The only exception is my home partition, which on some systems I just backup with "sudo tar pzcvf /media/usbdrive/`uname -n`_home.tgz /home" and on other systems I use 'rar' (because I like to break the filesize into 2GB chunks for saving to a FAT32 formatted USB drive). These solutions makes it easy to restore individual data files to my user directories, which is necessary because partimage does not have a GhostWalker-like utility, that would allow you to restore individual files. Anyone that adds that capability would be my hero.

Restoration is really easy with partimage... I just wish it was a bit more like the Windows app DriveImage, which uses checkpoints so that you can run sector level backups while you're actually using your system (and can still be restored from a bootable CD).

You don't have to partimage to a connected drive either, you can always mount a network volume through SMBmount or whatnot and backup to there.

Anyway, if you want to give the partimage solution a try, just google it - I'm sure I've seen a few walkthroughs on the net. Good luck!

[cchester]

Re: System Restore Software

Thanks I will look into it for me.

I would still like to know how to try and do it the other way though because I am trying to get some friends/family to switch and they tend to messs up Windows as it is and have to always restore so I really want a way to do the same in Linux too.