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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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Best practices for transferring an existing Linux installation from one drive to another? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Currently, my desktop computer has two storage devices attached: one 1TB NVME SSD, which has both Windows 10 and Linux Mint 21.2 installed on it (Each OS getting ~ 500 GB), and a 1TB SATA hard drive mostly used for Timeshift backups of the Linux Mint partition (Including my Home folder, for the record).

Later today I'm expecting to receive two more 1TB SSDs. When I've finished the upgrade process, I'd like to have my Linux Mint installation transferred to a RAID 1 array comprised of the two new drives and expand the Windows 10 partition to take up the whole existing SSD.

My current plan for doing this is to use my existing installation USB drive to install a fresh Linux Mint 21.1 installation on the two new drives, then use Timeshift to 'restore' my most recent backup from the existing installation. Is there a better way of going about this that I'm not already aware of?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Boot from a USB drive, then use DD to copy the entire disk over and resize the partitions if necessary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

dd + partition resize is a bit overkill. You can use cp -ax to copy at file level instead of disk level. Or, if you really want to clone the partition, using cat is faster than dd.

dd can be fast if you experiment with and pick the right block size, but ofc doing that would take extra time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You have to create and configure partitions and file systems if you do it at the file level. It also may not work if you're using disk encryption. There's a greater chance of having functional differences due to permissions, ownership, linking, etc doing things at the file level - though it SHOULD be fine but why bother if block device level is viable.

Did not know cat could be used that way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What if I want to clone an installation from a 2 TB drive (that is less than half full) to a 1 TB drive? Would I have to resize then dd?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes.