[CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

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carnacky79

[CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by carnacky79 »

Hi everyone,
I ave 7 identical PCs and I have some trouble configuring the first one. Now everything's fine, but I'd like to have the possibility to clone the installation in the other 6 PCs. Is there a way to have an ISO image of the disk and now install it with a pendrive into the other PCs?
Thanks a lot for the time and the answers.
Bye
gm10

Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by gm10 »

Sure, something like Clonezilla is probably the best tool for the job but you can create partition images even with the built in Disks tool or the dd command.
OunceofCommonSense
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Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by OunceofCommonSense »

I have been wondering about this also. Does moving clones to and from UEFI PCs with different motherboards create problems, or can those be sorted with Boot Repair Disk?
MB: Gigabyte model: B650M AORUS ELITE AX Memory: Corsair Low Profile Vengeance 32.00 GB. CPU Ryzen7600x Platform: x86_64 Distribution: Linux Mint 21.2
carnacky79

Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by carnacky79 »

gm10 wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 7:43 pm Sure, something like Clonezilla is probably the best tool for the job but you can create partition images even with the built in Disks tool or the dd command.
Clonezilla can create an ISO of the installation so I can create a bootable pendrive and install it into the other PCs?
Thanks
ajgringo619

Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by ajgringo619 »

carnacky79 wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 7:56 pm
gm10 wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 7:43 pm Sure, something like Clonezilla is probably the best tool for the job but you can create partition images even with the built in Disks tool or the dd command.
Clonezilla can create an ISO of the installation so I can create a bootable pendrive and install it into the other PCs?
Thanks
Clonezilla creates images (usually compressed) of all the drive's partitions and information. When you restore it to a new system, it will do everything for you, including creating new partitions. You'll need to have a USB for Clonezilla to boot from and another to save the image to. You could probably setup your USB to do both (assuming that it's big enough, of course), but I've never done it that way.
benali72
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Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by benali72 »

I clone Mint partitions across PCs pretty frequently. I do it by partition copying with simple linux line commands (not image copying of an entire disk). Partition copying may be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your goals.

Here's my methodology --

1. Clean shutdown of your source Mint instance
2. Boot up a different linux instance on the source computer (such as a live instance off a usb pen drive, for example).
3. Switch to the root user id, and copy the source Mint instance partition to an empty partition on an external removable usb connected disk drive (or usb memory stick if you have one of sufficient capacity).

Change directory to the target partition to copy to on the external removable usb connected disk drive, and perform the copy --

# whoami
root
# cd /media/userid/usb_target_partition
# cp -av /source_partition/* .

4. Boot live usb linux on the target computer. Use gnome-disks or gparted to create a target partition for your new Mint instance. (If the disk is entirely new and never yet used, you'll have to create a MBR or GRT on that new disk first.)

5. Connect the usb disk drive to the target computer, and perform the copy as root user id --

# whoami
root
# cd /media/userid/final_destination_target_partition
# cp -av /usb_target_partition/* .

6. Last step. Before booting your new target, you must --
6.1. As root, edit the /etc/fstab file and /etc/crypttab files to properly reflect partitions you'll use on the target machine
6.2. Set up the GRUB, LEGACY GRUB, or GRUB4DOS menus to properly start the new Mint on the target machine
(If the target machine has never been used, you will have to do an install of GRUB... which you can do from a mounted live instance)

This methodology works fine even if you're using standard Mint encryption of home directories. Cheers.
Johann_Popper

Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by Johann_Popper »

Umm... Mint includes Timeshift by default. Just backup the entire source PC and save it somewhere, load up a Mint liveUSB on the target comp and run Timeshift live, select backup of original that you saved, and you're cloned.
HaveaMint
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Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by HaveaMint »

Johann_Popper wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:34 pm Umm... Mint includes Timeshift by default. Just backup the entire source PC and save it somewhere, load up a Mint liveUSB on the target comp and run Timeshift live, select backup of original that you saved, and you're cloned.
Your UUID's will be different
"Tune for maximum Smoke and then read the Instructions".
Johann_Popper

Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by Johann_Popper »

Would one ever want UUIDs to be the same across 7 PCs on the same network?

Easy to change, though via tune2fs.

Also, @carnacky79, if your newly configed setup is still small -- i.e. not too many apps installed, say ~4 GB, you can just install *Pinguy Builder 5* for 'buntu 18.04, which is compatible with Mint 19. You can grab the deb to install from their website. Few dependencies, if any. That is an easy GUI solution to respin your current setup into a live installable ISO for easy USB deployment of your customized Mint. This way, you won't be cloning Home, and you can OEM install each of your 7 machines. If your customizations aren't too big (max ~4GB for live ISOs, I believe, though that old limitation may have a workaround nowadays), this is definitely the way to go.
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Linux-Bill
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Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by Linux-Bill »

I clone entire disks using a StarTech stand alone box (from Amazon). ALL my system backups are made by cloning. No questionable software, no typing super secret commands - so easy.
chrisuk

Re: [CLONING] How to clone an installation of Mint 19 to another PC

Post by chrisuk »

Johann_Popper wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:34 pm Umm... Mint includes Timeshift by default. Just backup the entire source PC and save it somewhere, load up a Mint liveUSB on the target comp and run Timeshift live, select backup of original that you saved, and you're cloned.
Indeed, I've been doing this for years... long before Mint adopted Timeshift . I just install once, and restore to other Desktops/Laptops.

Oh, just a note - Timeshift handles fstab and reinstalls grub... no need to do anything except boot up your cloned system.
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