So if you want to install Ubuntu on a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop and you keep running into the crazy colored vertical lines, during the install, hit F6, then select “nomodeset”. Presto!

I made a number of minor changes to the stock custom-ocs file, but they were powerful enough to get the job done.

mount /dev/sdb2 /home/partimag/

This is often overlooked, but make sure that you mount the proper location for your image files! On the external hard drive I used for imaging, I have two partitions: the first is tiny and has the Clonezilla software, the second is huge and holds the images. Hence, I want the second one (/sdb2) mounted as the image store.

echo “Type c to create image; defaults to imaging computer if nothing typed.”
read -n 1 -t 7 createimg
echo
if [[ $createimg == "c" ]] && [[ -n "${createimg}" ]]
then
echo “Image will be created from current machine.”
else
echo “Hard drive will be overwritten with disk image.”
createimg=”g”
fi

This code determines if I want to create a new image from the current machine, or push an image onto the current machine. The “read –n 1 –t 7 createimg” line reads one character (-n 1) into the variable createimg, with a 7 second timeout (-t 7). The “if [[ $createimg == "c" ]] && [[ -n "${createimg}" ]]” line tests to see if createimg is equal to ‘c’ and not empty. If so, a reassurance that the image will be created from the current machine is displayed.

x=`sudo dmidecode -t 1 | grep -i Product | tr -d ‘\n’`
y=${x#*: }
y=${y// /}

Here is the most important section. This determines the model of the attached computer. It looks hairy (like a lot of bash scripts), but it’s not too bad. It pipes the dmidecode output of system info (-t 1) to grep, which pulls out the line containing “Product”, and then trims the newline. The next line (y=${x#*: }) removes everything before the colon, and the following line (y=${y// /}) removes all the spaces. You are left with a variable containing the Product Name as stored in the BIOS, without spaces. Very convenient.

echo The following model has been detected:
echo $y
echo Please press q to abort.
read -n 1 -t 5 abort
if [[ $abort == "q" ]] && [[ -n "${abort}" ]]
then
echo Aborting!
exit 1
else
echo Continuing…
fi

This displays the just-detected model information, and once pauses for input, this time for 5 seconds (-t 5). This way, if something terrible has gone wrong and the wrong model has been detected, or you made a mistake, you can abort. I set it up with timeouts like these so when I plug my external HD into a computer and boot from it, it will automatically push the image onto that machine without any further intervention from me. If you are nervous, then remove the timeouts and do things manually.

echo Running Clonezilla
case $y in
OptiPlex780*)
if [[ $createimg == "c" ]]
then
echo Now saving image…
echo y | /opt/drbl/sbin/ocs-sr -q2 -c -j2 -rm-win-swap-hib -z1 -i 2000 -p poweroff savedisk “Dell780″ “sda”
else
echo Now ghosting machine…
echo y | /opt/drbl/sbin/ocs-sr -g auto -e1 auto -r -j2 -p reboot restoredisk “Dell780″ “sda”
fi
exit 0
;;

*)
echo The computer could not be correctly identified!
exit 1
;;
esac

Here’s where each individual model is handled. In this sample case block, the only listed model is an OptiPlext780. If ‘c’ was pressed earlier to signal the creation of a new image from the current machine, then the line echo y | /opt/drbl/sbin/ocs-sr -q2 -c -j2 -rm-win-swap-hib -z1 -i 2000 -p poweroff savedisk “Dell780″ “sda” does that for us. Going through, it echoes ‘y’ (so we don’t have to hit it manually) to the Clonezilla script that creates an image using partclone, with confirmation, with the hidden data between the MBR and 1st partition, removing the swap and hibernation files, with gzip compression, with the image split into 2000 MB pieces, power off after completion, save the entire disk, call it “Dell780”, and save device “sda”. If c was not pressed, and the image is put onto the machine, then it’s almost the exact same thing, with a few different parameters (“restoredisk” instead of “savedisk”, for example).

The default block is run if none of the model numbers match. Always a good sanity check.

If you had several different image types for each model, you could add additional prompts with read and case in each model block. The functionality is limited only by your needs and technical expertise.

Ever since I set up this custom-ocs file, it has run beautifully, needing only tweaks to add new models as necessary. It makes imaging a breeze.

• Current Mood: Monday
• Currently Listening To: "Run Like Hell", Pink Floyd

In a previous post, I talked about using disk imaging software for setting up Windows in a corporate environment. For years, I’ve used Symantec Ghost, specifically Ghost 8. I’d previously manually run Ghost from a network drive, booting from a custom floppy bootdisk with a DOS Novell client to allow me to log into our network (we still use Novell). A couple of years ago, I switched to running Ghost from an external USB hard drive that stored all the image files. To make it even more automatic, I wrote a tiny utility in assembly that reads the model info from the computer’s BIOS and uses the correct image file.

As time went on, though, the shortcomings of Ghost became apparent. The biggest one is speed: by running Ghost in a DOS environment, I was limited to USB 1.1 speeds. Ghosting a 20 GB Windows 7 partition would take around 40 minutes. When you are ghosting many machines at once, the quicker you can do it, the better. I knew of a great, free alternative in Clonezilla, but would it work for what I needed?

I have been using Clonezilla for backing up my home computer for a while, but running it in interactive mode once every month or two is a lot different from running it constantly (I only use Clonezilla at home to back up my Windows partition; my data is backed up daily using WinRAR). Most important was the ability to detect the model that the external drive was plugged into so it could grab the right image. My DOS COM file wouldn’t run under Linux, so I either needed to port it over, or find an alternative.

After a short foray into assembly programming in Linux, I figured that somebody smarter than me would have figured this out before, and I was right: dmidecode will pull that information from the BIOS, no problem. After fiddling around with a shell script, I was able to get the model information from the BIOS and automatically select the image. It took a few days to work out all the kinks, since my Linux expertise is very low, but I was able to get everything to work.

The results? Creating a disk image was sped up by a factor of two or three, and putting that image back onto a disk by a factor of four or five. Being able to put an image on a computer in less than ten minutes makes a big difference.

The only difference between Ghost and Clonezilla is that Clonezilla does not have a utility to change the Windows computer name and SID after the image is put onto the disk. In the past, it was considered that needing to change the SID was required or else all sorts of network errors would happen, so we used Symantec Ghostwalker to do so. However, even Microsoft says that it’s not necessary anymore, so we’ll give it a try. We aren’t in a Windows domain environment anyway, so it shouldn’t cause too many problems. Plus, we change the computer name manually as a matter of course regardless.

I always try to use free, open-source software whenever I can, and getting Clonezilla to do what I need it to do was a real victory.

Edit: check out my update.

I’ve been running Windows XP Pro x64 edition on my home computer for over three years now. (Side note: I’ve never had any compatibility problems with 64-bit computing, such as not getting Adobe products to run, and I hope that the day will soon come when there is no 32-bit computing anymore.) XP has served me quite well, being more than stable enough, especially in my current config (a Phenom II X4 920 with 8GB of memory and a Radeon HD 4870 video card). When Vista came out, I played around with it briefly and decided that there was no way that I would upgrade to Vista, and the feedback I got from people who had done so did nothing to change my mind.

Windows 7, however, does seem to be slimmer and less irritating than Vista, and so far the reviews have generally been positive. Will I upgrade? I’m not sure; it depends on how much it’s going to cost. The only thing I’m really missing in XP right now is DirectX 10, and since I’m not a gamer that doesn’t matter very much. Other things coming up on the tech horizon, like USB 3.0, may not be supported by XP and that could prompt an upgrade. For now, though, I’m content to wait.

…What about Linux, you may ask? I’ve used Linux a fair bit, mainly on a couple fileservers I’ve set up in the past. I’m definitely pro-open source and pro-free software. Unfortunately, although there are lots of alternatives to Windows programs on Linux (a good list is here), noticeably missing is Adobe Lightroom. I also use Quicken for my finances, but the quality of Quicken software has degraded so much with its latest releases that I have just above given up on it, even if it entails a painful migration. Lightroom, however, is still the biggie, and so until Adobe ports it to Linux, I’m sticking with Windows. The next laptop I get, though, will probably be a netbook, and if so, it will run Linux.