Coming from the Mac side, it is very esy to clone Mac drive using Superduper or Carbon Copy Cloner. Sames goes for the PC side with Norton Ghost as an example.

I realize there are a lot of links I can search for on Google regarding cloning an Ubuntu drive. What I want is to hear from someone who has found the best and easiest way to clone an Ubuntu drive. I have an external 500GB USB drive ready to clone my internal Ubuntu drive.


If it is possible, I would love to hear from someone who is a Mac user and who has had experience cloning a Mac drive, and who is also an Ubuntu user.

I am pretty new to Ubuntu and am really looking forward to digging in to see what this OS is all about. I also want to recommend it to my friends as an alternative to Mac and Windows OS's. After all, my mother who is 73 and computer illiterate has been using Ubunto on a Dell laptop since last fall and loves it!!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/ works for me.

Regards
JKZfixme

Do I burn the ISO to a CD? Is this a bootable CD?

remastersys will create an installable live-cd (at debian, i guess it will work for ubuntu too).

some recommend clonezilla (but for me its too difficult).

if i recall correct the syntax for remastersys is a simple
remastersys --backup
(say in /home/user/backup) and thats it.

Do you know if there is a GUI for remastersys?

sorry, i dont know ( i usually use debians live-helper for such things. remastersys i tried once and had no problems)
as long as you want to copy ALL you simply run the command remastersys backup (or similar: like remastersys --backup). Thats all.

in debian/unstable is a backup tool like "luckybackup", which seems to come with a gui. I heard some good words about it, but dont know if its availiabel for ubuntu.
I`d search in synaptic (the gui package-manager) for "clone" and "backup". In the description of the results its usually mentioned if its a graphical or text tool.

Thanks for the heads up j1alu. I will try remastersys as well and see how that goes. I gather that I would need to boot from a live CD? Right now I am cloning my drive using G4l. Once I finish that, I will try remastersys. If it just a matter of putting in a simple command, that really works for me. The simpler the better.

ok, one thing first:
till now i couldnt figure out how to exclude different stuff from being cloned/backuped with remastersys or live-helper. So, if G4l works fine...

Else heres the web-page:
http://www.geekconnection.org/remast...ersystool.html

heres the repo you might add to /etc/apt/sources.list:
http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/ubuntu.html
and install it like usual (sudo apt-get install remastersys or do it from synaptic)

and heres a link to the source:
http://www.geekconnection.org/remast...ubuntu-source/

unpack it with
gzip -d ***.tar.gz
tar -xvvf ***.tar
(i think both can be done in one step:
tar -xjf ***.tar.gz)

to install it:
sudo dpkg -i ***.deb

and after that create a directory to work in:
mkdir /home/your_user/backup
cd /home/your_user/backup
remastersys backup


Thats all. It will take a while. The result is a live-cd, which you may also install.
You dont need a live-cd to do it.
If you feel better at the gui, use that for all you know how to.

It might be i have got faults in those steps, but the explanation on the link above is quite easy.

as said: there might be better tools out there.
good luck

Thanks again j1alu! I will take a look at what you posted. So I can run remastersys without having to boot from a live CD? That would be fine with me.
Randy
www.mcran.com

yes. you do it from the system you wanna copy.

sorry not a mac or windows user
but I usually do something like

I hate to say this but I am so frustrated with backing up/cloning Ubuntu drives. I appreciate all the help in this post but I guess I just find it all too convoluted. I installed Timevault this afternoon, gave it a try, and now I am trying to remove it to no avail. Any ideas what I should do? It doesn't appear in the Snaptic package manager or in Add/Remove.

When I clone my wife's PC, it isn't difficult at all. I just launch Norton Ghost, select the source/target and that's it. Takes about 25-30 minutes to create an image file on the external USB HD. I don't have to go to command lines with what I think is confusing jargin. I want simple. Same goes for the Mac. Set it and forget it. I'm sure there must be something for Ubuntu that I can use that is pretty straight forward to use.

Would there be any videos out there maybe explaining a GUI app I can use? I would like GUI solutions that make sense, are able to implement and maintain.

Thanks again for all your help!!

I am not giving up on Ubuntu (9.04). I see so much potential in this OS!

My iMac is still my main computer, but I WANT to continue learning about Ubuntu so that I can tell other people about it as well, and maybe offer it as a viable alternative to Windows and dare I say, the Mac

By golly you can use norton on a linux machine. You just can't do it file by file you have do it bit by bit.

You can use clonezilla live cd. Use it from gui.

Almost any live linux cd has partimage.

Clonezilla hands down is the easiest. I have a separate HDD with a small partition that handles backups. I can backup a whole drive or a single partition. And restoring the drive is just as easy. You can burn an iso and boot from disc or extract the iso to a separate partition, and use grub to boot. Easy stuff

Thanks Manwithaplan and Jethro. I tried Clonezilla from the Parted Magic live CD, and I have to say I was confused. I just found the interface confusing at least to me. After I tried it, or was it another one (I tried a few over the last couple of days), my main drive size has gone from over 320GB of free space down to about 87GB of free space. How can I find out what is taking up all this space and delete it?

Is there a video I can watch on how to use Clonezilla so I can better understand it.

By the way Jethro, I don't use Norton Ghost on a Linux machine. I use it on my wife's PC. She is running XP Pro.