clone linux install

[dave3825]

I have a dual boot win 10 / Ubuntu . The linux has all my software for sdr. Is is possible to clone the drive and use the cloned copy in a desktop pc? I recently acquired a tower that has an i7 chip and it has no drive. I have plenty of drives and would like to free up the laptop and use the new tower for the sdr stuff.

I am a windows user but managed to learn linux and get op25, trunk recorder and gqrx installed and working.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

 

[Stupidfatkid]

I have a dual boot win 10 / Ubuntu . The linux has all my software for sdr. Is is possible to clone the drive and use the cloned copy in a desktop pc? I recently acquired a tower that has an i7 chip and it has no drive. I have plenty of drives and would like to free up the laptop and use the new tower for the sdr stuff.

I am a windows user but managed to learn linux and get op25, trunk recorder and gqrx installed and working.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

Short answer is no. Right off the bat you're going to run into two major issues . One, your Windows license is only good on your laptop. If you move the drive to a tower, Windows 10 will "deactivate". You will end up running a non-genuine version of Windows. This comes with all kinds of annoying messages and eventually Windows will start rebooting itself every couple of minutes. Two, the hardware in your tower is different. It's going to require different drivers than your laptop. Windows 10 is pretty good at detecting new hardware and installing the appropriate drivers, but it's not perfect. And then there's Linux. While you don't have to worry about licensing headaches with Linux, the hardware support isn't as flexible. So, yadda, yadda, and yadda, Bitlocker, yadda.. I'm sure you get the point.

 

[mtindor]

Short answer is no. Right off the bat you're going to run into two major issues . One, your Windows license is only good on your laptop. If you move the drive to a tower, Windows 10 will "deactivate". You will end up running a non-genuine version of Windows. This comes with all kinds of annoying messages and eventually Windows will start rebooting itself every couple of minutes. Two, the hardware in your tower is different. It's going to require different drivers than your laptop. Windows 10 is pretty good at detecting new hardware and installing the appropriate drivers, but it's not perfect. And then there's Linux. While you don't have to worry about licensing headaches with Linux, the hardware support isn't as flexible. So, yadda, yadda, and yadda, Bitlocker, yadda.. I'm sure you get the point.

The hardware support in Linux is likely going to be a complete non-issue. What would be an issue that would have to be overcome is the fact that it is very highly unlikely that Linux would boot up by default -- even if you are using the Windows boot loader to dual boot. You'd have to modify the boot loader.

If he is booting Windows / Ubuntu via Grub in Linux, that would need to be modified before he could boot up either OS. If he is booting up Windows/Ubuntu via the Windows boot loader, Windows may or may not boot up but it's probable that Ubuntu won't boot up until the boot loader is edited to let either boot loader know where to boot Linux from.

Assuming Dave does clone to a hard drive and fire things up on his desktop AND his Windows boots, then this article will be useful:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-re-activate-windows-10-after-hardware-change

Mike

 

[Stupidfatkid]

The hardware support in Linux is likely going to be a complete non-issue. What would be an issue that would have to be overcome is the fact that it is very highly unlikely that Linux would boot up by default -- even if you are using the Windows boot loader to dual boot. You'd have to modify the boot loader.

If he is booting Windows / Ubuntu via Grub in Linux, that would need to be modified before he could boot up either OS. If he is booting up Windows/Ubuntu via the Windows boot loader, Windows may or may not boot up but it's probable that Ubuntu won't boot up until the boot loader is edited to let either boot loader know where to boot Linux from.

Assuming Dave does clone to a hard drive and fire things up on his desktop AND his Windows boots, then this article will be useful:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-re-activate-windows-10-after-hardware-change

Mike

Windows licensing is a rabbit hole.

• If you upgraded from a retail copy of Windows 7, Windows 8 or 8.1, the Windows 10 license carries the retail rights from which it was derived – can be transferred. But under Microsoft’s rules, you are only entitled to a one time transfer.
• If you upgraded from an OEM Windows 7, Windows 8 or 8.1 license, these are licenses that come preinstalled on a new computer from a manufacturer, and then your Windows 10 license maintains the OEM rights – cannot be transferred.
• If you have a full retail copy of Windows 10, you can transfer it as many times as you want.
• If you performed an Easy Upgrade to the Windows 10 Pro Pack from Windows 10 Home, you can transfer it using Digital Licensing. This is possible because of the Pro Pack, while an upgrade, is a retail license attached to the Microsoft Account used to purchase it.

 

[dave3825]

Thanks you both for the responses. Looking back at my post, it really seems I did not explain that I wanted the cloned copy of ubuntu to go into the tower. Leaving win 10 on the laptop..

The ubuntu sits on a drive that dual boots ubuntu and win 10. I am also using the win10 boot loader.

I am sorry for not being more clear.

 

[Stupidfatkid]

Thanks you both for the responses. Looking back at my post, it really seems I did not explain that I wanted the cloned copy of ubuntu to go into the tower. Leaving win 10 on the laptop..

The ubuntu sits on a drive that dual boots ubuntu and win 10. I am also using the win10 boot loader.

I am sorry for not being more clear.

No worries. That actually makes it a lot easier since you don't have to worry about Windows licensing. Have you looked at Clonezilla? You might want to check out some of the YouTube Clonezilla tutorials.

 

[dave3825]

So what a mess. The way it was, was win 10 was installed, then ubuntu. And the metro loader would come up offering a choice of os. Linux stopped booting, again. Not sure exactly what happened now but now when booting up, I have a grub menu letting me select ubuntu, and then there is also an entry for win boot loader.

What ever. I can get into either one so I really dont care who's loader comes up.

So looked at clonezilla, and see the dest drive has to be equal to or larger than the drive being cloned. I also read that a work around is to shrink the target volume to a lesser size of the destination drive.

I also see that gpart, from within in linux, can clone a partition.

So for now, my question is, what's the best way to do this, being a more windows friendly user.

A, thru windows, and use partition magic to shrink the linux volume.
B, thru windows, and use disk management to shrink the linux volume

C, from within linux , and use gpart to shrink the linux volume

And if I clone the linux partition to a new drive, I would have the linux install, but I believe I would not have a way for it to load as right now it's part of a dual boot. If I am correct, I would have to boot to the new drive using a live linux usb (which I have) and then just reinstall grub? Or grub 2?

Thanks for any help. Little by little I am learning more linux...

 

[dave3825]

When I got this laptop, it only had a 500gb windows partition, 813gb system recovery (asus) and the 100mb system reserved.

Then I installed ubuntu (months ago) and this is what it shows.

Looking for reading material on how to get rid of the 2 unallocated and the 231gb. Trying to reduce the clutter.

As for the ubuntu install I want to clone, which one do I clone?

/dev/sda3 ext4
/dev/sda4 extended





https://forums.radioreference.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=66228&stc=1&d=1540295435

 

[dave3825]

AWESOME Downloaded gparted live and burned to a cd. Booted into gparted and shrunk the linux install down 100 gb so it would be smaller than the drive I wanted for the tower. Shrunk with no problem. Then booted into windows and ran minitool partition magic with the dest drive attached via usb adapter. Chose copy partition and selected the dest drive. It copied it. Installed new drive in tower. I had a feeling it would not boot. It did not boot. Booted into a linux live usb and mounted my system. Downloaded and ran boot repair. I am now running the cloned copy of linux in the tower and see trunk recorder running.... And also op25.. Just need to better my reception...

 

[Stupidfatkid]

AWESOME Downloaded gparted live and burned to a cd. Booted into gparted and shrunk the linux install down 100 gb so it would be smaller than the drive I wanted for the tower. Shrunk with no problem. Then booted into windows and ran minitool partition magic with the dest drive attached via usb adapter. Chose copy partition and selected the dest drive. It copied it. Installed new drive in tower. I had a feeling it would not boot. It did not boot. Booted into a linux live usb and mounted my system. Downloaded and ran boot repair. I am now running the cloned copy of linux in the tower and see trunk recorder running.... And also op25.. Just need to better my reception...

Congratulations. Nicely done.