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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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Can I just use dd to clone my laptop to a bootable USB stick? (suppo.fi)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I know about Clonezilla and copy pasting partitions with gparted, but can I just use dd to copy a partition with batocera to a USB stick and will it then boot from the stick? Do I have to set the boot flag or take any other steps?

Thank you for any tips.

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

Ok, thanks. That sounds pretty good.

If i want to compress it and save it as a backup can I do

cat /dev/sda3 | gzip -9 > drive.img.gz

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

fill up the remaining space on the drive completely with 0s with a dummy file you delete then, before gzipping

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, but like @kuneho said, since "deleted" stuff only is marked as deleted (not wiped), there's always a bunch of random on the "empty" space part of a disk, which compresses badly.

Do cat /dev/zero > /path/to/mounted/partition/zeroes and delete it after cat errored out because no space, to fill the "empty" space with zeroes.

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

That worked really well! I got a 50gb partition with about 30gb free space into a 10gb zipped image. Is there any way to show progress during the operation like with dd's status=progress?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I often use pv instead of cat for this. And there's some 'hack' where some tool looks at some kernel feature to guess progress of cp & co. But i forgot it's name.