Hi everyone
I want to make an efficient disk image that stores just my custom Linux instalation with OpenHab and other software, without empty disk space, so that can be installed on other PCs or restored as fast as possible.
I understand that ext4 scatters files over the disk, but probably there exists software that builds disk image or bootable backup compressed in tar.gz.
Any Ideas How to achieve the similar as I do with Acronis Disk Imager for windows which makes the backup image even smaller than disk occupied space.
But sadly I was unable to make that backup bootable. (May running grub-install on live media in PC that I am restoring solve that).
I usually make full partition images, which takes a lot of space that is not necessary and I also do file backups regularly.
Usually, my whole configured system has 6.5GB in Peppermint OS, but I end up storing 16 or 32GB disk images - wasteful and time-consuming.
But full-disk images are no good for storing and copying, they make too much overhead (by storing and copying empty space).
It is ok if I make small partition before Installation, but how to be sure it is not going to be too small?
SO how to make a disk image that has the size the same as the size of stored files or even smaller.
It would be great to achieve a principle similar to the RaspberryPi OS disk image which boots directly without installation and most importantly it is small.
The main thing is that I would prefer not to reinstall Linux and reconfigure things form file backups if the image can be done easily and space efficiently.
Thanks in advance.
Matej
I want to make an efficient disk image that stores just my custom Linux instalation with OpenHab and other software, without empty disk space, so that can be installed on other PCs or restored as fast as possible.
I understand that ext4 scatters files over the disk, but probably there exists software that builds disk image or bootable backup compressed in tar.gz.
Any Ideas How to achieve the similar as I do with Acronis Disk Imager for windows which makes the backup image even smaller than disk occupied space.
But sadly I was unable to make that backup bootable. (May running grub-install on live media in PC that I am restoring solve that).
I usually make full partition images, which takes a lot of space that is not necessary and I also do file backups regularly.
Usually, my whole configured system has 6.5GB in Peppermint OS, but I end up storing 16 or 32GB disk images - wasteful and time-consuming.
But full-disk images are no good for storing and copying, they make too much overhead (by storing and copying empty space).
It is ok if I make small partition before Installation, but how to be sure it is not going to be too small?
SO how to make a disk image that has the size the same as the size of stored files or even smaller.
It would be great to achieve a principle similar to the RaspberryPi OS disk image which boots directly without installation and most importantly it is small.
The main thing is that I would prefer not to reinstall Linux and reconfigure things form file backups if the image can be done easily and space efficiently.
Thanks in advance.
Matej
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