Send in the Clones

[krishna.murphy]

so the basic idea is to make a brand new fresh live install on the 2nd sd card.

and then just simply copy every thing inside the 1st sd card into the 2nd one.

am i right?

The "extra" file to be copied is in the KNOPPIX folder, called "knoppix-data.*" (depends on whether it's encrypted or not.)

Ciao!
Krishna

[utu]

Klaus2008's idea is to make a new bootable USB, including providing persisent storage,
exactly the same way as the first was made. Presumably from a CD. The only difference
between the two USBs should be the persistent images. You then cut-and-paste with
the USB's unmounted. You erase the clone's new knoppix-data.img file and replace it
with a copy of the knoppix-data.img from the original USB. You can even do the cut-
and paste in Windows, as I did.

[mecho]

One idea - not quite in sync with your discussion, but worth mentioning. Since Utu uses Windows - there is a tool called USB Image Tool. Its available for free from http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/download/
It makes image of the entire USB including boot sectors and restores it on demand. I use it to back up my Knoppix under Windows. It has an option to compress the image for less space. What I know is, it works well with SD cards too
It can be used to transfer the entire image to another SD card

[utu]

@ post#12

I don't know how to cut-and-paste anything unmounted, either.
My bad.
I was thinking about the dd bit-by-bit copy method.
I never got that to work, I might add.

[kcah]

hmm... so will this also work backwards?

do i get a fresh start if i just swap a fresh installed knoppix back to an old/used install?

[klaus2008]

You get a fresh flash install of Knoppix 6 if you remove the persistent image in the KNOPPIX directory. The system will ask you for the size of the persistent image file at next boot from that flash device.

[krishna.murphy]

You get a fresh flash install of Knoppix 6 if you remove the persistent image in the KNOPPIX directory. The system will ask you for the size of the persistent image file at next boot from that flash device.

You can boot with:

knoppix noimage

to keep the system free of the effects of the image, copy it elsewhere, then create a new image on the next boot. It could then be loop-mounted to get stuff off of the old one, as well, if necessary.

Cheers!
Krishna

[utu]

In coming back to this topic in 6.4.3, I note the following problem situation:

Earlier, using 6.2.1, I had allotted 1160 or so for persistent storage, leaving
a few unused Mbs on the SD Card. In 6.4.3, I allotted 1181, leaving no unused Mbs.
What worked before as a backup scheme isn't working for me now.

Saving the img on Win7 and attempting to replace imgs did NOT work.
The process won't complete, because the SD Card has too little space.
Perhaps the imgs are a bit larger in ntsf than in FAT32.

Trying to do the same img replacement game in a Knoppix CD environment also
did NOT work. The process completed without complaint, but the persistent store
no longer worked at all.
There may be some small overhead requirement even here.

I haven't heard any independent complaints, but I'd suggest those interested
leave around 10Mb's unused in their persistent store operation if they intend
to rely on this switcheroo scheme.

More on this whenever I have to rebuild my current 6.4.3 setup.
Any useful comments in the meantime are welcome.