Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

[technogran]

Well I am back with my silly newbie questions. Have Kubuntu running fine at the mo, and want to kick Vista into touch, there is just one problem that I hope all of you guys can help me with, how do you set about backing up the whole thing similar to 'System Restore' in XP and Vista.
I find it really annoying when I have spent many an hour getting Kubuntu just how I want it, and then something upsets it and I then have to start from scratch. I have another hard drive (USB connected) that I could save the whole thing to once I had got it as I like it, or even to a DVD?

I can't figure out Keep at all, but it only seems to save a folder at a time, I want to save the whole OS including how I have it set now.

TG

[Fintan]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

Well, there is this:
http://www.mondorescue.org/docs/mondorescue-howto.txt

very powerfull.

What I do though is I use aptoncd:
http://aptoncd.sourceforge.net/
to make a cd copy of all my installed apps and keep a backup of my /home/username/.kde folder.

I hope this helps.

[technogran]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

Thanks very much Fintan for your prompt answer . I wili certainly look into your suggestions but I really I suppose am looking for something that wii allow you to copy the whole lot, OS, files, everything onto either a DVD or an external hard drive just in case some download or whatever upsets the apple cart, and so you don't have to re-install the whole thing again, you know rather like 'system restore does takes a 'snapshot' at any given time, so that you can 'roll back' to when everything was hunky dory;

TG

[Snowhog]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

You might also want to read through Backing up your linux

[wmrobins]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

I'd use dd if you have an external hard drive with enough space.

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Dd
http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/ddcommand.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)

It's nice because you are making an image of the hard drive, so.... say grub get's messed up. An image of your linux partition won't help you boot. But, an image of your hard drive will get you up and going again.

Just read about the command you think you want to use first to make sure it's you want to do. And run it from a live disk.

wmrobins

[lingenfr]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

These are helpful. The last link didn't work for me. This one does:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_%28Unix%29

[monkwarrior]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

Have Kubuntu running fine at the mo, and want to kick Vista into touch

Maybe I'm wrong about your plans, but just in case a word of advice.

If you have installed Kubuntu first and want to make a dual boot with Vista then I'm sure Vista will overwrite your GRUB file (a file which gives you a choice to boot from a flavour of installed OS's).
Just make sure you install Vista first and then install Kubuntu or make sure to backup your GRUB related file(s).

Monk.

Oh and for backing up a whole OS I use Acronis, it costs money but it does the job flawlessly
It uses a live-cd for instance : http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...cts/trueimage/

[javierrivera]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

You can also use partimage to make backups of your partition to another hard disk (or over the net).

I have used it to backup some linux and windows partitions without major problems. You can also backup the MBR.

But for pure linux backups I'd as Fintan says. Just copy your home, use aptcd. It's quite faster than imaging, and it will left a "cleaner" system.

Javier.

[aged hippy]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

Thanks for the apt-on-cd recommendation, Fintan, i've found it can also be installed with Adept.

[lingenfr]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

To be clear, I have a 60gb HD with an XP (NTFS) partition, swap, / and /home partitions. I want to copy these partitions in working order, complete with MBR to a larger HD. Is DD or partimage or something else the best way to go about it. I also own Partition Magic 7.0/8.0.

[javierrivera]

Re: Backup the Whole thing? Can you?

For me, partimage advantages.

1) It has a text based menu.
2) It compress the image.
3) It only copies the used space.

DD:

1) It's already installed in your system.
2) It will also copy the empty space.
3) It's command line based.

Choose you own poison .

Javier.