To transfer the whole system to a new device

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hey everybody,

I’d like to ask you two questions about backup/restore not just files, but the whole system image.
As you know Windows itself and many 3rd party applications can create an image of the whole system and setting and you restore it whenever it’s needed (or maybe to transfer the whole system to a new and similar device), i’d like to ask you for similar methods in Linux, and specially OpenSuse.

First, can you tell me what is the easiest and best method for a novice like me? (I think Ghost4Linux or CloneZilla might be the best bet for me, but do they do the trick?)

Second, I’d like to install OpenSuse on a new Laptop, is there any way to move my settings and applications, which I’ve installed on my PC, to the Laptop via a simple method? Thus i will have similar things on my both machines
(as I remember, in ubuntu there is a method to backup a list of installed apps)

Thanks a lot amigos,
Regards

2

Making copies of whole disks or partitions you can use dd (from the CLI) or Clonezilla. But take care when using these on other hardware. Some config files (e.g. in Grub and /etc/fstab) may contain pointers to unique ids coupled to the disks. Those are of coursenot magicaly changed when you copy them to another disk.

“installed apps” is a loose expression, but when you restrict yourself to installed RPMs (and all zypper/YaST installed packages are installed RPMs), then you can create lists of installed packages (not apps) with variants on

rpm -q

see

man rpm

for details.
As an example, I use

rpm -qa --qf '%{NAME}:%{VERSION}:%{RELEASE}:%{INSTALLTID}:%{SUMMARY}
' | sort

in a script and create an HTML table out of that.

3

I use also CloneZilla :wink:
but for new installs i use a own maked bin bash script (uses zypper) that makes my repositories right and install the used soft and removed others.

With leap @ plasma 5 i did 4 installs from scratch with this script, one install tooks max 45min :wink:

4

Hi Henk and thanks for your message,

That’s great,
so for example it’s possible to restore a broken system with something like Clonezilla without installing OpenSuse again (if I got copies of whole disks), right?

And you’re right, App is a loose expression and I meant RPMs, as you said.
so can we restore packages if we have an HTML table containing lists of installed packages?

Thanks a lot amigo :wink:

5

Well Linux is not Windows and finding and installing most applications is so simple that I always wonder why people feel they must save their apps. Yep it is a real pain in Windows but this is not Windows. Unless you are using a system database all personal data is always stored in the users home. Most system configuration files are in /etc. It takes all of twenty or thirty minutes to go into yast select your important apps and install, if you forget some go to yast and install it. It is always good to clean out all the old programs you only ran once periodically anyway :wink:

6

Well, AFAIK, several people base their backup strategy at least partly on this. I never did, but I assume that some of them who do, can tune in here and tell you the details to care for.

I make an HTML table because that fits into my HTML pages I have about each and every one of my systems. But you may want a different way of storing the data. I only pointed you to a statement with many possibilities.

I can of course compare “manuala” (using eyes and brains) the list with a YaST window and then install what is missing.

But when you use a different output to store, you could write a script that compares the output with a new list and creates zypper statements to install what is missing.

Only your imagination restricts your possibilities here. :wink: