Reinstall to another drive or machine

[Member JJ]

Hi All,

Sorry for not finding a solution after a search, I am an old man, confused by all this new stuff.

Anyway, could I create a live USB stick that would enable me to reinstall the antiX to another machine with all the updates and customisations I have already created on this original one?

Thank you for giving my old laptop a second life,

JJ

• This topic was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by JJ.

[Member Xecure]

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There is a magic tool in antiX named Snapshot. Some say it was here before the dawn of humanity, but people in-the-know swear it was the GODS of antiX and MX who delivered such a tool to us, dirty linux mortals.

Travel to the Maintenance section of the Control Centre closest to your system. You will find the tool of the gods there (ISO Snapshot).
You can select the things from your system that you want to keep, and save the DNA of your system to a .ISO file.

Pay attention to what you select. The .ISO sample may contain too much information, and it may way a lot. Only select the system genes you are interested in. If in doubt, select all files and folders you consider worthy.

Once you have created the .ISO file, you will be able to clone your system to a USB host using the Live USB Maker (gui) tool hosted in the Disk section of the Control Centre. Your system clone will, from that point on, inhabit the USB host, and can be used to replicate the system to other Worlds. Once you no longer need it, you can terminate its existence (format the USB), and the clone will be no more.

I pray the gods grant you your wish and deliver a perfect clone in your image to you. And if you need some hand holding, come search for an antiX spiritual guide here in the forum when you need it.

We are watching…

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member JJ]

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We are watching – that was good.

So, how does one install the OS off of the live usb please? I have created it a few times, it boots just fine, accepts my credentials, I am presented with the familiar everything… but what should I invoke to install my system on the hdd please?

I was presented by a number of choices that I am not sure of at all in the beginning. Did I miss anything in the preliminary process?

One more time:

I have installed the AntiX on a 320GB drive. Created a snapshot. Burned it on a live usb. Boots up fine.
How do I install the updated OS with my user settings on a 500GB hdd now please?

I am definitely missing something obvious…

Merci

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by JJ.

[Anonymous]

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In some cases, it’s not obvious.

Your snapshot was created from a system which had already been installed, eh?
Post-installation, the installer routine removes itself (no longer needed) from the system.

The snapshot utility may (meaning if a network connection to the repository is available during the snapshot operation) re-install the antiX installer debfile… but it might not inject a copy of the “minstall.desktop” launcher into the user’s ~/Desktop directory. Even if a copy of the minstall.desktop launcher is successfully placed, maybe the user wanting to perform an install operation (later, during liveboot of the snapshotted system)… maybe that user is using a window manager only (no desktop manager) session, so doesn’t have an opportunity to see an onscreen installer icon. (Or, maybe the liveboot user isn’t running any xsession at all.)

Instead of hunting for a .desktop launcher, you can use the terminal prompt commandline

sudo minstall

If the result of the above is “command not found”
sudo apt update && sudo apt install antix-installer
then try again

[Anonymous]

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Well, in some cases, it’s not obvious.

Your snapshot was created from a system which had already been installed, eh?
Post-installation, the installer routine removes itself (no longer needed) from the system.

The snapshot utility may (meaning if a network connection to the repository is available during the snapshot operation) re-install the antiX installer debfile… but it might not inject a copy of the “minstall.desktop” launcher into the user’s ~/Desktop directory. Even if a copy of the minstall.desktop launcher is successfully placed, maybe the user wanting to perform an install operation (later, during liveboot of the snapshotted system)… maybe that user is using a window manager only (no desktop manager) session, so doesn’t have an opportunity to see an onscreen installer icon. (Or, maybe the liveboot user isn’t running any xsession at all.)

Instead of hunting for a .desktop launcher, you can use the terminal prompt commandline

sudo minstall

If the result of the above is “command not found”
sudo apt update && sudo apt install antix-installer
then try again

[Member JJ]

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Well, it worked right away: ‘sudo minstall’ worked right away.
Very, very fast even on the antiquated Thinkpat T-420 with old spinning HDD.

For whatever reason the new installation lost the WiFi settings, I just re-scanned and reset it.
Also, during the installation process I chose 24-hour time format, yet it didn’t listen.
Those are tiny nit picks in case someone is looking for similar things as well.

Thank you very much indeed. I will definitely spend some time learning now.
Thank you again.

[Member Xecure]

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Sorry for the stupid reply. I was just trying to make ISO Snapshot look more interesting.
I didn’t know you were stuck at the installation step.

Accessing the installer is possible (not as easy as from original live antiX 19) using App Select (which ignores the NoDisplay=true value of the corresponding .desktop file).

I like this program very much and use it a lot.

Good thing you got it solved with skidoo’s help.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member JJ]

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No worries, this will teach me to describe my predicament better. Gods and their beautiful feet can keep inspiring poetry.

Thank you for your help

[Member olsztyn]

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JJ wrote:

even on the antiquated Thinkpat T-420

Antiquated???
My Thinkpads T410 (even more ‘antiquated’) are the main machines I use… How about T60? Even much more antiquated but works fine with antiX…
Joke aside, ISO snapshot is a great tool as Xecure qualified in lofty words… Although I think originally was meant for traditionally installed antiX but works fine also for antiX Live USB and I think antiX Frugal, although for the latter I did not perform testing to confirm
Just to mention, ISO snapshot of antiX Live carries all the antiX install components intact. Please anyone correct me if I am wrong on any of these though…
Reagrds.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member JJ]

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T60 are great – can run proper Solaris x86 with absolutely everything working, no tweaking required.

[Member seaken64]

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JJ wrote:

Hi All,

Sorry for not finding a solution after a search, I am an old man, confused by all this new stuff.

Anyway, could I create a live USB stick that would enable me to reinstall the antiX to another machine with all the updates and customisations I have already created on this original one?

Thank you for giving my old laptop a second life,

JJ

Hi JJ, welcome to antiX.

I see you found your solution – an integral part of the antiX Live system. It’s very powerful. And one thing you may discover is that not all the tools have a GUI interface. But don’t let discourage you from trying them out. The command line can also be very useful.

I’m curious. How did you get the idea that you could create a Live USB stick of your antiX install yet could not find any instructions with a search? I am often challenged with searching the forums and many times I end up with better results if I use Google search. Then once I get some useful links I again try a search on the forums using better terms and end up finding all sorts of related stuff.

Anyway, there is lots of good info on the antiX Live system on the forum and in the wiki and Users Guide and FAQ. I wonder if you can find it now that you know what to look for? “Snapshot”. Ironic, I know. If we only knew the terms to search for while we were looking for it.

Seaken64

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Interesting!
For my particular use cases I found that running live, installing the software I want, then creating a snapshot is one good solution that allows me to use snapshot live or install it on multiple systems.

I can do similar things with a frugal instance if I don’t want to change much.
With more practice a frugal instance could be used for all of the tasks I want.

Multiple frugal configurations could also be used for a variety of use cases.

--
Brian Masinick

[Author]

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