clone ubuntu installation

[Tom Metro]

ref wrote:
> The problem with this is that it does not deal with the configs that may
> go along with the packages, and that is something that has bugged me for
> a while. 

True. Though copying your home directory is something you'd likely do 
when migrating to a new machine, and that'll bring over all your 
personal application and most of your X environment settings.

As for system configuration files, in the past I've used RCS to manage 
local changes across a small number of machines. Knowing what has been 
changed locally is the first step to manually replicating a config on a 
new machine. I'm currently looking into using a distributed version 
control system (specifically Bazaar[1] - the functionality of git 
without the brain damage :-) ) as a better way to do this.

And of course there are tools[2] specifically made for managing 
configuration files across multiple machines, but likely way overkill 
for a simple machine-to-machine migration.

1. http://bazaar-vcs.org/
2. http://reductivelabs.com/trac/puppet/

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/