[ubuntu-za] Installing Ubuntu Server on SD

[Hannes Coetzee]

On 22/02/2010 22:47, Charl Wentzel wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-02-19 at 15:40 +0200, Josh Brodrick wrote:
>
>    
>>          I was wondering if an alternative approach could work:
>>
>>          - Create a small partition on my harddrive.
>>          - Install Ubuntu Server Edition on this partition
>>          - Copy the partion to the SD card
>>          - Install grub on the SD card
>>
>>          Something like this.  Is this possible?  Which "tools" can I
>>          use?
>>
>>
>> Im not 100% sure about all the technicalities, but I know the program
>> FSArchiver might be able to do something like this. Its similar to
>> clonezilla in the sense that it can copy / backup a partition, but
>> instead of working on the block level it works at a filesystem level.
>> This allows it to move data from an existing partition to not a only a
>> different sized partition on another disk, but also to a new partition
>> that uses a different filesystem to the original partition. It states
>> it can backup grup as well.
>>      
> I was able to copy one SD card to another using: "sudo dd if=/dev/xxx
> of=/dev/xxxx".  This copied the SD card entirely (including the master
> boot record) with grub.
>
> I was wondering if it was possible to copy the SD card (as a whole
> including master boot record and not just a partition) to a file using
> something like dd.  This way I avoid having to keep a master SD card for
> a quick installation.
>
> I'm worried that with partition tools like Clonezilla I would still have
> to partition the SD, clone the partition and install grub before I have
> a fully operational SD card.  If you have to setup a couple of systems
> in one day, this could become rather cumbersome.
>
> Regards
> Charl
>
>
>    
dd will copy the whole drive if you tell it to, including the mbr and 
empty sectors.
example: dd if=/dev/sda of=sd-disk.img and to restore just run dd 
if=sd-disk.img of=/dev/sda