How do I create a .iso file of my personal Linux Lite system

[DeepThought]

For those interested, you could try Clonezilla:

Code:

https://clonezilla.org/

I have used Clonezilla and it is a great tool, similar to Windows Norton Ghost or True Image for creating image backups of systems.
It is possible to build your own recovery partition using clonezilla, with an F-key operation on boot.

It does take a lot of reading to understand the potential of this utility but might be an option until someone reawakens systemback

[smhardesty]

Yes 4.x series uses Time Shift... I'm sure its good too - I've made a back up just not as much yet as I did with Systemback...

OK. Great. I'll be sure and play with Time Shift just a bit when I spend some time on that desktop. Who knows? Maybe I'll like it better than Systemback. Thanks for that info!

I have used Clonezilla and it is a great tool, similar to Windows Norton Ghost or True Image for creating image backups of systems.

I have seen Clonezilla mentioned in the past and I seem to recall doing some reading about it at some time. I used Ghost a LOT back when I was still working. I "discovered it" the first time when I was the tech at a local community college. I was having problems with a large number of Korean exchange students changing a LOT of settings on lab computers. I first kept "locking down" more and more on the computers, but they still found ways of getting around what I had done. These kids were no dummies. They were all sharp as tacks, but treated the computers as their own and really wreaked havoc on them. They were the ones that first led me to discover you could get to the Internet via Microsoft Word. That one did take me a while to root out. Like I said, sharp kids.

So I finally ran across Ghost and did a ton of research. I applied for, and received, an exemption from Symantec for the cost of licensing for the college. After playing with it for a couple of weeks I finally figured out how to do remote cloning from my office to any PC on the network. I also finally figured out how to setup a batch file for Ghosting the computers in all the different labs and classrooms. The lab instructors/monitors and classroom instructors made sure all the PCs were turned off each night they left for home, then fired everything up a bit in advance of the lab or classroom opening each day. Every PC was "Ghosted" back to pristine condition at the start of every day. Doing that cut about 20 hours work off my schedule every week. I loved Ghost! Unfortunately, Ghost is no longer supported.

I will check into Clonezilla again if I find I don't like Time Shift. Thanks for that tidbit too!

[DeepThought]

[member=6982]smhardesty[/member]  I believe Clonezilla can be setup as you have described using Ghost across a network.

Timeshift, I believe is limited to using local/usb connected drives and cannot be used across networks.

[smhardesty]

[member=6982]smhardesty[/member]  I believe Clonezilla can be setup as you have described using Ghost across a network.

Timeshift, I believe is limited to using local/usb connected drives and cannot be used across networks.

Yeah, I figured that. That's OK though. I no longer work. I'm in the rocking chair. I have only my laptop, my wife's laptop, and one desktop to concern myself with. I don't even have any external drives to be concerned with. After getting out of the rat race, I've gone out of my way to find ways of reducing any workload even further.

I do appreciate your response and will note that in case anyone I used to work with contacts me. A fellow can never have too much useful info. Thanks.

[justme2]

I don't even have any external drives to be concerned with. After getting out of the rat race, I've gone out of my way to find ways of reducing any workload even further.

But isn't an external or 2nd drive a necessity for any backup system? Backup to main drive =  loss of backup if drive catastrophically fails.

[smhardesty]

But isn't an external or 2nd drive a necessity for any backup system? Backup to main drive =  loss of backup if drive catastrophically fails.

An external drive is definitely not a requirement to backup. A second drive is probably recommended, but in the case of this laptop I have only one physical drive. It's partitioned with an 8GB SWAP, a 25GB partition as / for the system, a 500GB partition as /home, then the remainder of the 1TB is mounted under /media. I create a space on the /media partition to save restore points to. Actually, on my wife's laptop I don't even have a /media drive. It's just SWAP, / (root), and /home. I created a directory on her /home partition to save the restore points to. Systemback, or any of the good backup type software will save the system files and all your personal files in the /home directory. Now, as to how secure that type of backup system is will be hotly debated. Yes, if you save your backups or restore points to the same physical drive the system is installed on, you do run the risk of losing everything if the drive does a complete crash and burn.

On my desktop PC I have 4 physical drives and 2 optical drives. It's a leftover server I took in on trade right before I retired. I put a different MoBo in it and made some other changes, but the big case with all the bays and all the cooling fans on it was too irresistible. I turned it into my desktop for the office. On that machine I do save backups and create restore points on a different drive, then I copy all that drive to a second drive.

I have a couple of 128GB SD cards and a 256GB SD card. I will occasionally copy the contents of my laptop's /home directory onto one or more of those cards and then just dump it onto the big desktop PC. I had noticed some suspicious network activity not long after we moved into this house so I locked the whole network down and don't share any files or directories between any of my PCs. I lived in the country for nearly my entire life including the last 28 or 29 years before we retired to town so never had any worries with anybody attacking my network. Living in town is a whole different story. I still can't believe the number of open networks I can see. I just now checked and 3 of the open ones are available right now. Silly people.

[torreydale]

Deja Dup is good.  But for plain data backups, I prefer Grsync.  Search "Joe Collins Grsync" on YouTube.  He has good videos on it.

[justme2]

But isn't an external or 2nd drive a necessity for any backup system? Backup to main drive =  loss of backup if drive catastrophically fails.

An external drive is definitely not a requirement to backup. A second drive is probably recommended, but in the case of this laptop I have only one physical drive. 

I did say external OR second drive but not a good choice of words on my part.
Users who have one laptop with one HDD and no space for a second drive need to consider an external drive to secure their backups. In my experience most users only have one machine but I don't know how that compares with members of this forum, who probrbly have a greater interest in the technicalities. A survey may be of interest! No matter what method is adopted, security of a backup is priority if averse to risk.

[smhardesty]

I will say that while I was still actively working and had a fairly large number of Windows users as clients, I showed, then taught everyone of them how to do simple backups via different options. I even created batch files to perform file backups back when I had large numbers of Win95 and Win98 users. Without fail, I received several phone calls every month from clients stating their "computer had crashed" and they needed me right away. Most often it turned out they couldn't resist the urge to visit porn sites, chat rooms, nor messenger clients and their PCs were literally eaten up with malware and other problems. Some of those clients I was able to help.

There were however, occasions when the hard drive had truly "bit the dust" and data was irretrievable from them bar a trip to an elevated "clean room". My first question was either, "Where is your most recent backup?", or "How recently have you backed your files up?" I'll venture to say over 90% and probably over 95% of the time they answered me with a "deer in headlights" stare.

So how important is a second drive? Not at all for those people.
.

[FreddyM]

Halloon Linux Lite 4.2 look under Settings for the tool "Disks"You can clone a drive as an img file.