SD cards, virtualisation and backup in Ubuntu

Dr_Phil

Hi there,

This is a 3 in 1 thread

I recently started messing around with Ubuntu 10.10, I used to have Linux all the time on one of my virtual machines - mostly for fun and testing some of its features - but today I decided to go for it 100% so I replaced my 500GB HDD with Win, etc. on it with 60GB HDD that is Linux-dedicated drive - and Ubuntu 10.10 is the only system I currently have.

I have a few questions though, I am hoping someone could enlighten me:

1) how do I mount my SD card so that is visible in Ubuntu? I have no problems with other drives (1xUSB 2xTB external) - I am just looking for a quick and painless way to be able to copy my photos to the HDD by sticking my SDHC card into the card slot in my laptop..

2) is there any software that would be comparable to VMware or Virtual PC to create virtual environments in Ubuntu?

3) what linux software would be best (you name it) to make a backup of the entire HDD/partition and that would allow me to boot the software from the USB/CD and restore the whole partition to the new HDD?

Any help would be appreciated, I'm still a newbie in the unix/linux systems.

Giuseppe90

Have a look at this thread, seems to deal with mounting SD cards

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=299939

For virtualisation have a look at Qemu or Virtualbox

http://www.virtualbox.org/

http://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page

For backup I have used rsync or dd , if you do a google search on either you should get loads of referals.

Sorry I havent gone into much more detail but hopefully google will fill in the blanks

Dr_Phil

Thanks for response to my thread.

Now, I have to update points 2) and 3)

2) FAUMachine - looks great and I'm going to give it a lash later on.

3) Clonzilla does the job.

However I'm still stuck with that SD card.. Went through the forum, but no luck.. Here's what I'm getting from 'sudo fdisk -l':

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002518a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 6993 56165376 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 6993 7296 2437121 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 6993 7296 2437120 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdc: 999.5 GB, 999501594624 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121515 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x8bc31313

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 121516 976074752 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdd: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x44fdfe06

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 77825 625129281 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 16.0 GB, 16022241280 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 15280 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6f20736b

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 ? 379950 937327 570754815+ 72 Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 ? 82368 1027695 968014120 65 Novell Netware 386
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 ? 913029 1858355 968014096 79 Unknown
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb4 ? 1409025 1409052 27749+ d Unknown
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order



So:

60GB - my HDD in the laptop
999GB - external HDD connected via USB
640GB - external HDD connected via USB
16GB - USB memory stick

and this part:

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Would that indicate my SD card? IF so, what's wrong with it? Is this the file system that seems to be the problem here?

Giuseppe90

That message seems to refer to the 16Gb USB drive (/dev/sdbx). From that output it doesnt look like the SD card is being picked up by the system at all so the solution wont be straight forward as far as I can see but someone else here may have a quick solution.

Unfortunately I dont have any direct experience using a SD card on Ubuntu, all I can advise is to go through the ubuntu forums - sorry

Dr_Phil

Ok, problems solved:

1) Connected my camera via USB cable. Photos transferred no problem. Feck the SD card once I can transfer photos I'm happy.
2) Virtual Box is way better than the one I mentioned earlier (I've actually forgotten I've been using it a good few years ago on Win systems). Perfect solution for me.
3) Clonezilla does the job perfectly, also added Deja Dup Backup Tool and set auto backup every 3 days to the external drive - dream.

Thanks!

SouperComputer

Bit late now to tell you this, but you can get VMware Server for Linux for free.

Dr_Phil

SouperComputer wrote: »

Bit late now to tell you this, but you can get VMware Server for Linux for free.

Never too late sir.

How do I go about getting it? Is just just free to download or are there any tricks behind?

SouperComputer

Theres no tricks perse you'll just need to create an account on vmware.com and request a key. Not a bad thing to have to be honest and I haven't gotten and spam from them. Then you download the package (or get it from your distro's repo) request a key from VMware and away you go. For the price its great.

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_server/1_0

I personally prefer 1.x. 2.x has a java/web UI that im not fond of. Also you cannot mount physical disks directly with 2.x, but you can with 1.x.

Enjoy and post back if you have any questions. You can get it free for Windows too.

Dr_Phil

Thanks a mill man, I'll give it a lash, used to use VMware on Win, nice piece software...

Capt'n Midnight

you can buy USB - SD adaptors in the pound shops , in case you can't get the SDcontroller recognised in ubuntu

you can also use it in the USB port you've let virtualbox take control of ( use the one from virtualbox.org instead of the one in ubuntu)

tommycahir

Maybe this is a bit late but I have used Rsnapshot to manage all my back-up and it allows ftp and SFTP backups for off-site storage if needed.