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I was windows user for a long time and recently switched to Ubuntu. I was using acronis to continuously backup my system on windows. My HDD structure looke like that

link to image

As you see my /home is already separated and doesn't need backup. SDA5 is the one which needs backup.

Now, what is best way to backup my system? And I want something like acronis to restore from grub menu or something like that when system crashes.

BTW: tell me If I'm wrong in partition division:)

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Sorry but I can't understand what are you trying to achieve here. Why do you want to backup your system dir and not your home?. – Javier Rivera Jan 10 at 17:58
@JavierRivera I want to get image of working system with it's applications' files (not configuration files about all applications) – revocoder revocorp Jan 10 at 18:01
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Then IMHO, reinstallation will be faster. See askubuntu.com/questions/17823/… to get a list of current packages to be able to reinstall then fast. I know this is not an answer to your question, but I don't expect that there is any software like that as this is a very non-linux thing to do. – Javier Rivera Jan 10 at 18:09
You might want to read up on Drive Imaging on the Ubuntu help wiki help.ubuntu.com/community/DriveImaging – Chris Wilson Jan 10 at 19:37

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

I would say you need to change your mind a lot as Linux ain’t Windows! In Windows there are activation and other nagging issues in re-installation but not so with Linux. Backing up whole system is useless in Linux. All you need to do is three things:

  1. During installation make /home into separate partition (Optional but very useful)
  2. Backup your home dir. I recommend the default backup deja-dup if you have connection to server. I have not tried with local disk but I think it is possible (with DD or other tools)
  3. Export all your packages list into text file. see this question

Now in case your system crashed you just reinstall your system (/home will be untouched and hence intact), use package list to install back your packaged and your system is back to where it was. All configurations are there!

If somehow the whole system crashed including home, then use your backup to restore home and then install package list (of course after fresh installation is done!)

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This is a very good answer. +1. Two things I'd add: First, personalizations to software configurations are saved in /home. So even when the / is formatted and Ubuntu and applications are reinstalled, personlizations are retained in the /home and its backup. Second, If you enable Ubuntu One, the Software Center can be configured to keep a copy of the list of installed applications in the Ubuntu One server. This can be retrieved in the newly installed system's Software Center and the applications can be reinstalled easily. – user68186 May 14 at 20:14
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My best system backup solution:

  1. Create a live USB using the MultiSystem utility.
  2. Add Parted Magic to live USB
  3. Boot PC with this live USB and start Parted Magic
  4. Make a backup of any partition using Clonezilla included in Parted Magic.
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up vote 0 down vote

Try Redo Back up and Recovery. It's a livecd which can back up and restore parition images.

http://redobackup.org/

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