Clone Linux to second PC

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rustleg
Posts: 136
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2011 5:01 pm

Clone Linux to second PC

Post by rustleg »

I have installed Linux Debian 8 (Jessie) on a PC and it has taken me the best part of a day to customise to my liking. I have a second PC (call it PC2) and wondered if it is feasible to create this same system on PC2 by using an image of PC1, rather than spending the hours recustomising a new installation.

I have already cloned the system to PC1 successfully to get a second instance to multiboot. I changed the UUID of the clone (although this might not have been necessary as I don't limit primaries) by mounting the root partition in a different Linux and edited grub.cfg to update the UUID.

My plan to clone it to PC2 would be to copy over the image to somewhere on PC2, set up boot edit and restore the image. I guess it's possible it won't boot because of grub issues so I'd try to use a grub CD to boot it (I have used a grub CD to boot a modified system before) then run update-grub when logged in to PC2. I would also change the host name.

Other than that I'm not sure what else I'd need to change, so any tips would be most welcome, thanks.
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Clone Linux to second PC

Post by TeraByte Support »

sure, just backup it up and restore it. Provided it didn't limit the
modules installed and everything is there for the other computer, it should
boot up (presume grub is in the partition).


"rustleg" wrote in message news:11190@public.bootitbm...

I have installed Linux Debian 8 (Jessie) on a PC and it has taken me the
best part of a day to customise to my liking. I have a second PC (call it
PC2) and wondered if it is feasible to create this same system on PC2 by
using an image of PC1, rather than spending the hours recustomising a new
installation.

I have already cloned the system to PC1 successfully to get a second
instance to multiboot. I changed the UUID of the clone (although this might
not have been necessary as I don't limit primaries) by mounting the root
partition in a different Linux and edited grub.cfg to update the UUID.

My plan to clone it to PC2 would be to copy over the image to somewhere on
PC2, set up boot edit and restore the image. I guess it's possible it won't
boot because of grub issues so I'd try to use a grub CD to boot it (I have
used a grub CD to boot a modified system before) then run update-grub when
logged in to PC2. I would also change the host name.

Other than that I'm not sure what else I'd need to change, so any tips would
be most welcome, thanks.

gpsmikey
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 1:19 am
Location: Kirkland, WA, USA, Earth

Re: Clone Linux to second PC

Post by gpsmikey »

Does that work if the two PC's are different hardware? I know with windows, you run into all sorts of issues with the HAL if the two machines are not identical.

mikey
DrTeeth
Posts: 1289
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: Clone Linux to second PC

Post by DrTeeth »

On Sat, 12 Mar 2016 18:40:48 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
gpsmikey disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>I know with windows, you run into all sorts of issues with the HAL if the two machines are not identical.
Not really true apart from win XP with third party disk controller
drivers.
--
Cheers,

DrT

"If you want to find out what is wrong
with democracy, spend five minutes with
the average voter." - Winston Churchill
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