Clonezilla -- LMDE's Best Friend

[malligt]

A heads-up for everybody....

Clonezilla has stepped up a notch since the January 18, 2011 release!

Today I went to their website, and found the "latest" version, downloaded and installed it to a usb flash drive.

clonezilla-live-20110223-natty-iso to be precise.

Note that this is not yet considered a "stable" release. They call it a "testing" release. So, it seemed appropriate to use with LMDE...

Besides a more user-friendly, and nicer-to-the-eyes interface than previous clonezilla releases, there is a nice new feature in this release----Clonezilla now offers you the option to check your cloned image to see if it is restorable. Nice to know before you end the program...and nicer to know before disaster strikes.

[viking777]

Thank you for that - I must have a look at it soon.

[tdockery97]

Yes thank you. I am a big user of Clonezilla. I image my two distros once a week so that no matter what happens I have a fresh copy to put back on the partition. With LMDE, doing it less than every week can result in also having to bring a bunch of updates back in as well.

[viking777]

I had a look at it today and apart from the feature you mention to check saved image files I see very little difference really. Maybe I am expecting too much. As an ex Acronis True Image user I know exactly how limited Clonezilla is, but I am not really complaining because I don't expect Clonezilla to be as good as Acronis - for one thing Acronis costs money and Clonezilla doesn't (although Linux imaging software that was as good as Acronis is something I would happily pay for - it is just so important).

The one thing about Clonezilla that always has me beating my head against a wall is the way it deals with multiple partition imaging (which is all I ever do). It offers the ability to select several partitions to image but it only creates one image file from all of them - this drives me insane! If I want to image 4 distros I want 4 image files, not one!! If I break Mint 10, I want to replace Mint 10, not Mint 10 + 3 other perfectly serviceable distros. (Not that I could do so anyway since I don't have a partition big enough to restore 4 distros onto unless I delete something first). So I am forced to image them one at a time. This wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to start from scratch every time (I know about the 'use existing /home/partimage' option - but have you ever tried using it? It doesn't work, end of story).

So I actually use the command line since it is quicker than starting the gui every time. The downside is that I have to remember the exceedingly long command to start the first image going (after that it is just a question of altering the partition number and the name of the image, you can recall the command from the bash memory with the up key, which is why it is quicker. Unfortunately the bash memory is not persistent over a reboot, even on a usb key, I wish it was).

[malligt]

@viking 777

Thanks for your in depth analysis of the Clonezilla "testing".....my personal use is very basic. 1 distro on 1 hdd.

I like that they have attempted to streamline the gui process in this "testing" release, vs the current, somewhat clunky (to me) "stable" release. It just seems easier to use than the January 2011 edition.

That they now offer you the option to check the image you've just made to see if its re-installable.... priceless!

For free software, that's not bad.

[marlar]

I cloned my Mint installations with partimage. I couldn't make clonezilla work, although that was not the most recent version.

So, since I couldn't make it work and thus haven't tried it, can somebody in a few words describe the difference between Partimage and Clonezilla?

Thanks