Re: moving partitions
>> I have 2 machines: one is a laptop, the other is an old desktop.
>> Neither has a CD/DVD burner nor do I have broadband internet access
>> yet however both machines have NIC cards so I thought I could buy a
>> few feet of CAT5 ethernet cable and connect them to transfer
>> everything from the laptop to the desktop (which has an extra 50GB
>> hard disk that is empty and would be perfect for this task).
What is the purpose of the transfer? Depending on the purpose, you might
want to do it differently.
>> The laptop has 2 partitions: /hda1 for Win32 and /hda2 for Linux.
>>
>> Both machines are running Debian testing release. The laptop machine
>> is up to date howver the dekstop has not been updated in 3 years and
> I started to respond on how to do this, but -------------^^^^^^^^^
> ouch. do you happen to have nfs-kernel-server installed on either of
> these machines? basically, you need to share one or the other disk
> across your network so that you can copy files.
I wouldn't want to use NFS for this task. It's designed for file sharing,
not for file transfer.
>> I've never hooked up ethernet or setup a LAN nor transferred a hard
>> disk image from one machine to another. I want to transfer the Win32
>> AND Linux partitions from the laptop over to the desktop extra hard
>> disk.
> probably the easiest thing is to get whats called a crossover cable. that
> allows two nics to be plugged into each other directly. If you think
> you'll be setting up a lan in the next little while, go ahead and spring
> for the network switch and a couple regular patch cables -- they'll be
> more useful in the long run, probably.
Actually, there's a good chance that any random ethernet cable will do.
So get yourself an ethernet cable and try with that first. If it doesn't
work, it's OK: you'll need the cable anyway.
>> After that is working what should I do to get the 2 machines talking
>> to one another.
Configure the interfaces. I'm not sure how the GUIs would do it, but on the
command lines, do something like:
ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.3
on one side and
ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.4
on the other. The 192.168.2.N is now the same of the respective machine.
You can then transfer a partition with
tar clf - -C <partition> . | ssh 192.168.2.<other> tar xpf - -C <dest>
I wouldn't use `dd' because you'd then end up copying the empty parts of the
partition as well, and you're forced to use the exact same size, etc...
Stefan
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