I just set up a new system on an SSD. Can I simply clone the old root LVM to it with DD (from a live USB, neither partition mounted)? If so, would I have to delete everything except /home first, or just overwrite?
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Why not just run the installer off the USB stick. I would only do the DD clone if I were bringing EVERYTHING including /home across. Otherwise Linux installer should know how to create a system with an existing /home. It’s usually an install option. With an SSD it should go fairly quickly anyway.
Why not just run the installer off the USB stick.
I did. I think you’re missing my point. I’ve created a new installation, but I actually want to preserve my old one. I want to copy /root (which I assume contains everything but /home), which is on a separate LVM partition, to the new installation. Because /home is on a separate drive that I overmount at boot. I always keep /home on a separate drive so I don’t have to worry about data backup when I do a new OS installation.
OT: Musk has just confirmed the landing failure was due to slow throttle response in the engine (see twitter).
Yes, so long as the boot blocks are set right. However dd may not be the right way unless you have reproduced the partition table. If I were going to try to do it, I’d mount the old and the new disks using Knoppix; I’d then partition the new drive and then mount them all and cp -a old to new; then see if I could do a ‘rescue’ to rewrite the boot block on the new disk to use the new partitions.
You could probably dd the partition (doubt whole lvm setup would copy right) as long as it’s identical/smaller and resize2fs after. It should mostly work…
I like Dale’s idea better, though, and a reinstall/copy home better still unless you’re looking for an Educational Experience. Figure out how to dump and restore your package list and you’re mostly there.
Well, really, that’s all I want to do is replicate installed packages, and avoid all the reinstallation. Is there some way to do that and then just do updates, rather than literally copying /dev/mapper/root?
Should be straightforward. On Debian/Ubuntu see this discussion http://askubuntu.com/q/17823; you can likely do similar with rpm on Red hat.
I assume partition tables are the same on both drives; they were both created with the same installer. I don’t want to copy /home (there’s no way it would fit), just the OS.