Best Application to Backup / Restore Entire Ubuntu System ?

[user1]

> i want an application that is
> best in the linux world that does backup / restore.

I usually have my ubuntu on one partition of 30 gb

I always make backup of my partitions using puppy and the dd command - 
puppy also have the gparted program installed.

I would use a puppy live cd for the dd operations, because it has a very 
easy to use interface (I find), and is very fast, also check 
www.minihowto.org out to see some screenshots of puppy

That is, you would have to download a puppy iso image (big file) and burn 
it into a live cd (I use k3b)

Download from here: http://www.puppylinux.com/download/

Seen from puppy, in order to backup partition 1:

dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/mnt/sdb1/backup1.img

/dev/sda1 is partition 1 of the first harddisk

backup1.img is a file containing the backup'ed partition, you could call 
it something else.

In order to restore backup1.img onto partition 1:

dd if=/mnt/sdb1/backup1.img of=/dev/sda1

My partition size for my ubuntu is 30 gb, and takes about 30 minutes to 
backup/restore - and dd really does not care what filesystems you have on 
the partition, in a way it clones the partition.

You could even backup the whole harddisk (/dev/sda), but if the harddisk 
is big it could take a fairly long time - but dd really is easy to use I 
find.

See also "man dd"