Re: Near clones of a Debian install

[Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net>]

First  I wish to say "Thank you!".
Second I wish to say *ROFL* ;/

I have a suitably large hard disk.
I have a suitable preseed.cfg file.
I have used said preseed.cfg to produce required installs.
Each ~"clone" takes toooooo long ;/
For _idiosyncratic_ reasons I will *NOT* accept a VM.
My default set of utilities is explicitly irrelevant. lol

I've spent *DECADES* in engineering support.

My spec may not seem "????"/"whatever".
*HOWEVER* it is my specification.

P.S. Friends/relatives think I'm "_______". {fill in choice 
adjective]

*THANK YOU* for responding.



On 7/22/2016 12:31 PM, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 11:04:23AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> > I have a laptop set aside for experimenting with Debian installs.
> > I've not yet defined my personal "optimal" install.
> > My nominally base install will be a reasonably standard CLI plus a
> > personally preferred default set of utilities.
> >
> > That base install *SHALL BE* on a read-only partition (e.g. sda5).
> > I wish to "almost clone" it to  sda5,  (e.g. sda6, sda7, sda8).
> > The above "almost" refers to whatever is required to run Debian as installed
> > to that *explicit* partition.
> > I will make various install/configuration choices to the "almost cloned"
> > partitions.
> > My then current "optimal" install will then be placed on either sda5 or sda
> > 6 as I consider appropriate.
> >
> > Does that make sense?
> > Suggestions and polite brick-brats accepted ;/
> > TIA
>
> Get a largish hard disk - if your machine is able to run virtualisation and KVM
> - build virtual machines and do this sort of thing in those.
>
> Or - use preseed and PXE boot to do this install multiple times.
>
> What's the default set of utilities?
>
> All the best,
>
> AndyC