Partimage Backups
Whatever you’re doing, stop! Have you backed up your systems today? If so, great! If not, try Partimage to make copies of entire partitions.
Backups are easy to neglect, but that has great potential to cause problems. After all, it’s too late to create a backup once your hard disk crashes. At that point, you can only say “D’oh! ” in your best Homer Simpson voice or bang your head against a wall. Thus, you should create backups now — or at least as quickly as you can.
Of course, the first step in creating backups is planning your backup procedure. A plethora of backup hardware and software exist, and this column is too short to cover them all. Instead, let’s delve into just one backup tool:
Partimage (
http://www.partimage.org), an
x86 and
PowerPC tool that’s often used to create backups of critical system partitions. These backups can be copied to CD-Rs, recordable DVDs, tapes, or network servers with big hard disks. Partimage’s format is great for restoring an entire working system with minimal fuss.
Better yet, Partimage is an effective choice to create a standard Linux installation: just install Linux on one system, configure it the way you want it, back up its partitions using Partimage, and restore those backups on as many systems as you like, thus creating virtual clones of the first system.
Partimage’s Purpose and Features
