Norton symantic ghost

[davijordan]

Is there a clone of ghost for windows available for linux. I have seen one or two but they are slow. I might as well do an automated install. If all the machines were going to the same network, I would probably use ltsp instead. I need to be able to multi-cast pre-built linux images to several similar machines all at once as rapidly as possible..

[spotslayer]

Ghost works well with linux. That is if u don't mind giving up your freedom.

David

[davijordan]

I used norton ghost quite a bit at my last employer. I also own it for personal use. I need an open source alternative. I am working on a zero software budget for the time being. I think I may have found a possibility in clonezilla or g4u. I have not tested them yet. My goal is to create a foolproof method so that i can use it and ether-wake to mass produce systems or to do mass conversions from windows to linux.

[Tsuroerusu]

I just use the dd command. I did this for a friend of mine's older sister recently when I built a new system for her. After having gotten Windows XP all set up with antivirus and stuff, I created a 25 GB EXT3 partition at the end of the drive using a Fedora LiveCD, and did this:

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# mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3
# cd /mnt/sda3
# dd if=/dev/sda1 of=sda3.img
# md5sum /dev/sda1 sda3.img

I also copied the image to a second drive in the system to have a backup in case the drive died.

[davijordan]

Yes that works. I understand how to do that, but I want to do is to image 30 to 50 machines or more at a time using some type of multicasting like i used to do with the corporate version of norton ghost.

[Ridgid]

take a look at Clonezilla
http://clonezilla.sourceforge.net