Adding Clonezilla to the Manjaro live installation media

Manjaro Development Feature Request
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#1

I've been asking this for years and I don't intend to give up on this.

Could the Manjaro development team please include Clonezilla to the Manjaro live installation media, so that when you boot from the live installation media that you can make a backup of your Manjaro installation? Clonezilla is just 3MB, so it doesn't take up much space.

I've had to do this so many times and in many cases internet was not available to download Clonezilla.

Clonezilla is such an essential tool and Manjaro doesn't have any backup and restore capabilities yet, so it's useful for that. And I understand that there are many other backup utilities out there, but Clonezilla is like the gParted of backup and restore utilities. It's used by most people out there.

The issue I often run into is backing up and restoring a Manjaro installation while there is no internet available. This is really an issue that I've been running into for years now, which is why I've been pressing for this for roughly 3 years now.

Clonezilla is so widely used and Manjaro doesn't have any native backup and restore capabilities. Therefor I think this is a fair request.

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#2

[moved and tagged this for the feature request]

#3

I'm just pointing out that rsync is on the ISO and it's possible to use that. I run the following command to take a backup of the entire system (apart from directories created during a typical system startup)

rsync -aAXv --exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found"} / /run/media/antikythera/Buffalo/Aures/

source - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rsync#Full_system_backup

you simply reverse the source and destination to restore contents, so it would read in my instance:

rsync -aAXv --exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found"} /run/media/antikythera/Buffalo/Aures/ /

Clonezilla is a good suggestion though and would be very much appreciated as an option too.

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#4

Odd, but seeing this tag, I decided to see if clonezilla is on my ArchLabs install, and it is.
Normally though I use fsarchiver. You can restore to smalled partitions from the larger one you archived. Clonezilla can't do that. And fsarchiver is much easier to use. In fact I have an alias to do so.

#5

Very strongly support this request.

In fact I have wanted it so much that I make my own iso's with clonezilla added.

#6

Clonezilla can do that, but you have to perform some fancy footwork first.

#7

It has been included in bspwm edition for over a year now. Currently also bspwm-mate and awesome edition have it. And you can use those medias to install any edition because they have manjaro-architect.

#8

This gets a +1 from me also. Would be a really nice feature to have.

1 Like
#9

I'm also in favour of adding Clonezilla - and also other related tools like photorec/testdisk (don't know if they're already included).

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#10

They are also not included. This would be a huge benefit to have these utilities preinstalled.

#11

That is a fair request :slight_smile: I will include it in the next Openbox iso. The iso also includes Architect so if the computer is network connected it can be used to install any Manjaro Desktop.

  • clonezilla
  • fsarchiver
  • testdisk

ISO has been updated
https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro-community/storage/openbox/17.1.8.1/

1 Like
#12

I thought I had included them, but it seems I had not. Adding now. Bspwm isos are meant to be also system recovery tools, so it makes sense to have them.

Git updated, I'll update isos on the next release.

3 Likes
#13

I was hoping it would get added to the XFCE installation media as well.

#14

Maybe send a pull request to

I don't maintain xfce so I'm not adding it myself. I think xfce is primarily maintained by @philm?

#15

Neither do I - why is it important to have it on xfce edition or any other for that matter?

What I mean is - you can use any edition to boot your pc - and as the mentioned tools is fairly small - you can easily add it to the running live environment.

Only backdraw is - if you don't have a network connection (internet connection) then you cannot.

But don't the users - in need of these specialized tools - have an internet connection when booting on the live media?

I added them to the openbox media because I can see myself in a situation where they are needed and the ob edition is - kindof - build to my preference :slight_smile: .

#16

I prefer bit for bit backup with clonezilla also. Have you restored a corrupt HD/OS from "rsync"? I was curious how painful/painless it is.

#17

Have you folks tried 'dd', especially to copy partitions and it doesn't require any package?
I recently tried (again) clonezilla (and dd) and personally I find a reinstall much easier and simpler (assuming data files are not compromised). There's no need to fix back uuid's, hostnames, fstab, grub, mkinitcpio... and a host of other things. I suspect most people do not clean up these things after using clonezilla or dd. They may cause much angst (later on) if not done.

But as someone said elsewhere, 十人十色 [1]
Cheers.

[1] - Said here.
Japanese? - okay, sakura, kiwifruit, tulips, ■■■■■■■ ..... all our Chinese are belong to you. :smiley:

1 Like
#18

It is my favorite - though it creates an image same size as partition.

One of the bigger advantages of the dd command is that you can mount the image R/O and then run testdisk on it to recover what can be recovered.

It is also an advantage when doing forensics as you do not have to risk making changes to the forensic object thus compromising evidence.

3 Likes
#19

Then go to gparted and do a 'recheck' (I think it's recheck) on the partition and that will fix the partition size correctly.

[edit] - oh, it's 'check' (not recheck).
Just looked it up
can be done with command parted too without going to gparted gui.

2 Likes
#20

Yes please ... this gaining any real traction?

This is why I prefer Clonezilla, smaller backup images, thus backup finishes quicker.

Restore process is rock solid also and as idiot proof a process as it gets for bit by bit recovery.

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