There are many many options for cloning and system backups. Consider this only a brief introduction to the possibilities.

Cloning Installed Software

To replicate your packages selection on another machine (or restore it if re-installing), you can do

aptitude --display-format '%p' search '?installed!?automatic' > ~/my-packages

move the file "my-packages" to the other machine, and there type

sudo xargs aptitude --schedule-only install < my-packages ; sudo aptitude install

See also Reinstalling Same Packages

Complete System Imaging

• Mondo Rescue

• Clonezilla

• FOG

• Remastersys

• Commercial products like Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image usually handle linux installations fine as well.

Backups

There are many ways to back your system up.

• Backup Up Your System has a somewhat disjointed pile of suggestions and options.

These are commonly used for large installations/enterprises and can be used for home users as well.

• Amanda

• Bacula

• http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

Rsync based tools are handy, quick and can save space when combined with hard links like

• rsnapshot

• rdiff-backup

And there are many many more options like these

• Duplicity

• Home User Backup

• TimeVault

• FlyBack

• Back In Time

CategoryBackupRecovery