How can I secure my curent configuration?

[Guest]

Like many others I really want to rely on "Linux" for may own use. I have tried several distros through the years and never found one that suits my hardware without a lot of effort, head scratching, and searching for the right drivers and reading advice for hours.
I now have installed customised, cajoled, and despaired for several weeks until I have an installed Kubuntu 7.04 modified and configured, that will carry out 90% of my regular needs.
After crashing several times,would like to make an installation CD that will install my now running system, not the basic Kubuntu ready for hours of mods and reconfigure each time.
Is this possible? How?

[cantab]

Re: How can I secure my curent configuration?

Difficult to say.

There are three obvious areas that you will have changed.

* Installed software
* /etc, global configuration
* hidden files and directories in your home (they start with a .), for your user configuration

/etc and the dotfiles in your home can be backed up. To get a list of all installed packages,

dpkg --get-selections

Save that along with your backups.

Once this is done, you MAY be able to restore your settings as follows:

*Install new kubuntu
*Run

sudo dpkg --set-selections < installed-software
dselect

* Restore /etc from the backup
* Restore your user configuration from the backup
* Reboot

This _might_ work. Then again it might not. For example, if you had to compile any of your own drivers, they won't be saved by this manner.

An alternative would be to just create a disk image. Try using partimage from a liveCD, for example SystemRescueCD. But that will require a lot of space. You'll want to save it on a partition (and ideally drive) other than the one used for your operating system.

The setup I have is my / and swap partitions on one drive (the small one), and a data partition on another drive (the big one), mounted on /media/sda1, with a symlink /home/user/docs > /media/sda1/user. If I wanted to I could store a disk image of my system on my data drive. Of course said data drive isn't itself backed up...

[askrieger]

Re: How can I secure my curent configuration?

This question comes up periodically. There is a recent How-to describing a way to do what you want.