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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[Question] Using DD to make a backup of an OS drive? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Would this work or would I have problems:

Using dd command to backup an entire SSD containing dual boot Windows/Ubuntu partitions into an .iso file, with the intent to then dd that iso back onto the same size SSD in the case of a drive failure?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh, that makes everything a lot easier. The majority of the relevant settings will be in your home folder then, i. e. in the ${HOME}./.config folder, while some might also be in ${HOME}/.local/share etc.

You probably want to backup the whole home folder anyway, so that would pickup most of your settings. In order to make that work on a different system, you would have to install all applications you were using on the tablet as well. Luckily, software installation in Linux is pretty easy, so you can export a list of installed applications from the Surface and then re-install them on your target system before migrating your home folder. The software list should become part of your backup. See e. g. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/82880/how-to-replicate-installed-package-selection-from-one-fedora-instance-to-another for an idea of how to perform this.

I have used this approach in the past and it will get you 95% there. There might be some global system settings that you'd like to also transfer to your new system, but you can add those as you discover you miss them on the target system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Okay then I guess I'll just backup my home folder on kDrive (my cloud service) and then just remember which programs are installed since the automatic listing of programs seems a bit too complicated for me. Thanks for the help!