Hey everyone,

what ghosting/imaging software do you guys recommend? Is there any freeware apps out there for Linux?

Thanks

if the drives are identical then dd can make this very easy

The drives are not identical. I heard about Acronis. Is there any identical freeware apps out there?

dd works fine if the drives are different---you just can't ghost from bigger to smaller.

Whether you need something more than dd depends on what you want to do....

We're not ghosting bigger to smaller.

How do I ghost the image with DD? Do I have to download something, is this utility bootable? Any other info would be appreciated.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l maybe?

dd is the basic Linux low-level copy utility--it is included in any Linux I have ever seen. If you need it to copy the drive in the system, you can use it from a live CD.

Here is the Ultimate Tutorial on dd:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ile+size+limit

Be aware that--if you clone a 20GB drive to a 40GB, you will wind up with the first 20 matching the source, and the last 20 unusable. This is, however, fixable by changing partition tables. Not a problem if you are just cloning for backup or transfer purposes.

If you are just interested in backing up data, you might consider Sbackup:

http://onlyubuntu.blogspot.com/2007/...tem-using.html

The instructions are for Ubuntu, but if you go to the Sbackup sourceforge page, you can get generic installation instructions. Sbackup is supposed to be an easier alternative to rsync + cron for backing up and restoring a system. For backups, you normally just need your data and some configuration files, not the whole hard drive.

dd is a low level utility that makes a bit-for-bit copy of a drive, directory, or partition. It does not have the flexibility of Norton Ghost to restore individual files.

The utility dd is primitive for making a copy of a hard drive. I suggest Ghost for Linux. It is similar to Norton Ghost.