Clone /home and /data mounts from MBR desktop to EFI laptop

I have Leap 15 on my MBR desktop. It is set up like I want it for now.

Is it possible somehow copy/transfer/clone the /home and /Data information to the UEFI laptop after I have it installed and working?
(USB/DVD or home network if I can managed to set it up)

Just trying to save duplication of effort if possible.

TIA
Bill_L

Easiest:
create an ssh connection from desktop to laptop to make sure that works ( open port 22 in the firewall )


ssh-keygen (leave all default)
ssh copy-id laptopuser@laptop_ip

This allows you to login without using the password, but based on key pairs.
Login, become root, create the /data dir, set it’s permissions so that laptopuser can write in it
Next use Dolphin - Network - Create new networkconnection, sftp protocol, use the laptopuser’s credentials . From there on you can simply select on the desktop what you want to copy over.
Another method, instead of dolphin, would be to use rsync over the ssh connection.

EDIT: Yet another option is to have the desktop as an NFS server, exports /data and /home, the laptop as a client, mounting both on some temporary mountpoint, then copy the content to it’s desired place.

Hi Bill, I don’t think that the boot method (MBR vs. UEFI) matters. Cloning the whole partition might work, for instance via “dd” if there is enough room in the laptop.
Be aware that cloning a partition might (should?) change its UUID, so the mount options in /etc/fstab may need tuning after the duplication.
I would preferably use a backup (from desktop) and restore (to laptop) which should copy only data, without touching the partition details.
If you are using Gnome, the Backup tool should be able to do that.

HTH

I agree that MBR vs UEFI shouldn’t be an issue if you want to clone the /home partition.
But, if you were instead talking about the root partition which might include the boot files… that might be a different story.

TSU

Thanks to all that responded. Good things to know and learn!

My thought was to take /home and some of the /data mount.

I wasn’t planning on doing any root ‘/‘ moving.

If you set up NFS appropriately, you can use rsync/rsyncd to keep the /homes on the two synchronized either automatically, and/or ad hoc.

If you have an external drive, simply use Clonezilla, back up only those partitions, then restore them on the laptop. They would, though, have to be restored to partitions that are the same size or larger on the target machine. The backups cannot be restored to smaller partitions.

You could start out by creating a / (root) partition on the target machine, then restore the cloned partitions to the target machine.

If the partitions are different (ie: if on the original machine, they are, say, sda2 and sda3, but need to be restored to, say, sda4 and sda5 on the target machine), you do that by going to the directory with the backup in it and renaming the “sda2” files to the target “sda4”, for example.

… or simply, using the info in Knurpht’s instructions above, install sshfs from the repos, mount the desktop partitions with sshfs, then as root on the laptop, cd to the partition on the laptop and use something as simple as:

cp -R --preserve=all ***/path-to-the-sshfs-mount-directory-on-the-laptop/**** .

the -R means to go through and copy all the subdirectories and all the files, and note the dot at the end, which says to copy all the of those to the current directory, maintaining the directory structures.

The preserve=all will keep all permissions and file settings the same.

If necessary, you can then chown and alter permissions as required.

At this time I have copied the directories and files I want to the external hard drive, and will move them into the respective directories on the laptop.
It means I have to do a lot of de-installs and installs what I want, but I am old and slow and going nowhere soon.
Besides it is good practice.