On 1/21/22 11:36 PM, lou wrote:
i've installed bullseye on usb diskcan i copy it to hard disk (sda2) and make necessary change in /etc/fstab andthen update grub of usb disk to boot sda2? Thanks!
I have a SOHO network with about a dozen IoT, iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Debian GNU/ Linux, and FreeBSD machines.
Copying/ imaging/ cloning Debian (and FreeBSD) operating system instances from one device to another is possible. There are multiple choices.
A simple case is to image the entire device. Boot the Debian Installer (d-i) (or a live Linux distribution) and use dd(1) to copy the entire USB drive to the entire HDD:
# dd bs=1M if=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-... of=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-...When done, shut down the computer, disconnect the USB drive, boot the computer, enter the CMOS setup utility, adjust the settings, save the settings, exit Setup, and boot the HDD.
Of course, the number of sectors on the target device must be equal to or larger than the number of allocated sectors on the source device. And, if the device uses GPT partitioning, you must deal with the backup partition table at the end.
Also note that if the USB disk was partitioned with the MBR scheme, the d-i may have written an entry to /etc/crypttab or /etc/fstab for swap that uses a /dev/sd?? partition node. (Boot and/or root should be based upon UUID). Using /dev/sd* nodes is brittle and can break if you add, remove, or rearrange drives. My fix is to replace the swap partition /dev/sd?? value with a /dev/disk/by-partuuid/... value.
While doing the work by hand from a d-i rescue console or a live Linux distribution terminal is possible, it is error prone. I have written scripts to automate most of the steps. Alternatively, there are purpose-built tools for cloning drives. Clonezilla is one FOSS example:
https://clonezilla.org/ David