Back Up of everything

robingazi · 08-15-2006, 03:11 AM

I manage to screw up my debian etch every now and then probabaly due to lack of knowledge/experience (the word 'probably' should be ignored here). After several installations followed by screw ups and help from a number of kind souls of LQ, I fanaly have the debian etch where I almost have everything I need and things are sort of working well. I installed debian etch from a netinst cd and it usually takes around about a week to complete installation of things I want [due to power cuts in Dhaka and my slow internet]

I cant buy debian cds as I dont have a credit card [debian cds are unavailable in Bangladesh]

The problem is as things are doing fine at the moment Im scared to venture out to the unknown fearing I might screw things up again.

So my question is, is there any way to make iso images of the packages I have installed in my pc? I want to burn the image/s on a cd/cds and install debian from them everytime I screw it up again. If it keeps my settings as well, that would be a bonus. I wouldnt mind if the cds dont boot since i have a netinst cd. i just need the packages to be made into an iso file.

I dont want to download all the cd images since it would take ages and I really do not know which package belongs to which cd.

BrianK · 08-15-2006, 03:42 AM

Do you have another machine that you can use as an ftp server? If so, you can use g4l (ghost for linux) to make a disk image of your hard disk (gzipped) from one machine to another. google search "g4l".

Just make the image when you're happy with the way your machine runs. Once you've fouled it up, you simply restore the system with the image you previously stored on your ftp server.

hitest · 08-15-2006, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianK

Do you have another machine that you can use as an ftp server? If so, you can use g4l (ghost for linux) to make a disk image of your hard disk (gzipped) from one machine to another. google search "g4l".

Just make the image when you're happy with the way your machine runs. Once you've fouled it up, you simply restore the system with the image you previously stored on your ftp server.

Cool idea, I like that solution.

robingazi · 08-15-2006, 01:32 PM

I have another pc at home, it runs xp and is on the same network. I have no idea how to do this but a detailed explanation could really help me here.

BTW that pc has only a 6.4gb hard drive and 2gb is being used by XP.

PS: Can i save the file on a vfat drive on my pc and some how direct the installer to get the packages from there during installation?

robingazi · 10-11-2006, 02:49 PM

i screwed up again. Anyone have an idea how to get this done? I had tried copying all the *.deb to my /var/cache/apt/archives/ and then i did this

#apt-get install apt-move
#apt-move getlocal

A previous attempt had worked but this time it is not.
What could be the reson behind it not working this time?