What's the best way to backup ubuntu 8.04 to DVD? And to restore it in case something goes wrong? I want a "fire and forget" approach to backup where in case something goes wrong, the process of restoring my computer is simple, not complicated. And, I want a FULL backup and restoration, not a partial one, with system settings included.

Check out the mondoarchive, mkcdrec, and systemimager packages. I've had very good luck with Mondoarchive in the past, but have started playing with systemimager (http://www.systemimager.org). Either should do what you want.

if you want a bare metal restore solution you probably want an imaging product.. a couple more options would be G4l (Ghost for Linux) or Acronis

http://www.backupcentral.com/compone...overy_with_G4L

or for a more polished commercial solution look at Acronis True Image.

What's a "bare metal restore"?

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That's the "worst case" scenario. Your entire machine has died, somehow, and you're left with nothing but "bare metal". Usually this means your hard drive(s) have died, and you can't even get to a failsafe boot, to do any sort of rescue.

A bare metal restore will take a 'snapshot' of your system, and put it into a state, where you can put it back onto a blank hard-drive/system, in a short time, and have EVERYTHING back the way it was.

The downside is that you can only go back to identical hardware, with no problems. There is some wiggle-room, though, depending on what you change. Change a NIC? Hard-drive? No problems, usually....change platform (AMD64 to Intel), or RAID5 array to single-disk, and things get complicated. The more you change, the worse it is.

Also, you can't (usually), just restore a single-file from a BMR image. If you toast a 50 page document you've been working on, you'll have to dump/reload your whole system, to get that one file back.

I usually take a BMR image once a month, and do document/work backups to a USB stick daily. But that's just me.

Yep that's it, which from your original post sounds like what you wanted. I believe Systemimager can do that as well as G4l and Acronis.

in addition to that I would run something like backupPC or flyback. Something to quickly back up your data in between system images.


I need to take a look at the solutions TBOne proposed as well.. see what their capabilities are.

Farslayer, thanks for recommending me Systemimager. I want a backup system that's easy to follow, though. As a result, I'm a bit apprehansive about installing Systemimager. If you can recommend something more user friendly with my objectives in mind, I'd appreciate that alot. Thanks!

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TB0ne, thanks for the reply. Maybe if I tell you what I want specifically, this can help you give me some specific options. I want to backup all settings in my ubuntu 8.04 so that, for example, if it becomes impossible to boot or load ubuntu, I can rely on my backup to restore it to all the settings I had. And I want this backed up on DVD. It doesn't matter if I don't backup my mp3s, movies, etc.

Also, I'm looking for a user friendly solution - this is VERY important!

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A bare metal option gets everything, period. You can exclude some things, like your MP3's, movies, etc., but it will definitely get your settings, configs, and everything else about your system.

Systemimager looks to be pretty good, but Mondoarchive is very simple to use. G4i and Acronis look good too. I'd suggest that you try them out, and pick the one that works best for you.

Thanks TB0ne, I'll look into them.

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Actually Systemimager was TBOnes recommendation..

OK, I downloaded mondoarchive through: 'sudo aptitude mondoarchive', but I don't know how to run it. How do I backup my system now that I got mondoarchive? I thought your said that this was a simple program.

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Yes, it is...but any of the programs mentioned required a little bit of reading of the documentation. You can't just install them, and they automatically do exactly what you want.

The full doc set can be found at their web site, http://www.mondorescue.org/

Type in "mondoarchive"...you'll see a menu. Follow the choices, to do what you want.

Thanks TB0one. I appreciate it.

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