Foxclone - image backup, restore and clone tool

[Jasper]

Hi all

I came across this application that I thought might be useful.

Homepage:
http://www.foxclone.org/index.html

Foxclone is a Linux based image backup, restore and clone tool using a simple point and click interface. It takes images of the partitions on your hard drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD) and stores them for later restoration. Image files are compressed to save space.

It will backup and restore:

Windows and linux filesystems, such as ntfs or ext4

GPT and MBR/legacy/MSDOS partition tables

Foxclone automatically backs up the partition table and bootloader(s) whenever a backup is taken.

It will clone:

Direct drive to drive

To drive from a full backup

There is the regular ISO download and also a Deb file available.

foxclone51_amd64
http://www.foxclone.org/downloads/foxclone51_amd64.deb

I did check in the FP95 PPM and the application is not available.

It does not work out of the box and I have tried to change the directory structure with no success.

Anyone want to try it themselves?

[wizard]

@Jasper

This looks like a great find, my preliminary test with the ISO show it works well with speeds on par with commercial programs. Will test further and report in more detail.

Thanks
wizard

[bigpup]

I installed the deb package in BookwormPup64 10.0.4

The execute files are placed in /usr/local/sbin/
They will not work for various reasons.
The only ones that are needed is the foxclone51 and foxguide

There are two .desktop files in /usr/share/applications/
foxclone.desktop
foxguide.desktop

Open each one in a text editor and modify the exec line adding /usr/local/sbin/ to it.

foxclone.desktop exec line:

Code: Select all

Exec=/usr/local/sbin/foxclone51

foxguide.desktop exec line:

Code: Select all

Exec=/usr/local/sbin/foxguide

However to really use this.
It needs to be installed in a Puppy version, you can boot from a USB drive.
Get all kinds of warnings, not to use it to do anything to a drive, the operating system in running from.

Probably better to use the ISO not the deb package.

It puts main menu entries in System and Utility.

[Jasper]

@bigpup

Thank you for the comprehensive reply.

I thought it would be a great utility to use and am keen to hear back from @wizard as I saw mention his/her use of OpenZFS.

I could get it to get it to startup and produce a dialogue box but then it crashed.

I was keen on the DEB file as the ISO is much larger to download.

[bigpup]

I to got the deb version to install and startup.

But it seems to crash, after it warns you, and you click on OK to proceed.

[wizard]

This seems to be a very capable backup/imaging program with many options. The user interface is intuitive for most operations. Think it is best used by booting it from a bootable USB flash drive. The backup target drive (for the image) can be another internal physical drive or an external USB drive. You can also backup/image external drives. Restoring an image to different hardware requires using the CLONE (image to drive) feature.

I had issues with the foxclone51-bionic.iso, so would recommend trying the foxclone51-focal.iso first.

Note of interest:
Currently configuring a HP 15-FD series laptop for a customer. My standard procedure is to make an image before making changes, however its SSD uses 4K physical and logical sectors. Consequently, my goto backup/imaging programs (Aomei Backup and Rescuezilla) would not recognize the drive.
Foxclone can recognize and does image this drive. Do not have a method to test a restore of that image.

Thanks
wizard

[Jasper]

@wizard

Thank you for posting your results and the additional comments.

I was considering replacing/uprading a new SSD drive as it contains W11.

The last time I did this I used Acronis True Image which worked with W7. My copy is very dated and I am unsure as to it's usability as SSD drives were not as common place as they are now.

[wizard]

@Jasper

My older copy of Acronis True Image would not see the ssd on the HP 15-FD laptop. I also tried Easeus, Minitool and Macrium backup. Only Macrium saw the drive, but it could only do a partition backup and not a system backup. The deciding factor is if the drive uses both 4K physical and logical sectors.

Also, some of the backup/imaging programs require you to install them on the source drive, I want a program that can be booted from USB. Foxclone meets most of my requirements so will be testing it some more.

Thanks again for posting it.
wizard

[AndyMH]

Just found this topic from a random google on something else, so registered here to respond. I'm the foxclone dev. I'm a mint user (of over eight years) and have dabbled with linux since the early noughties. There is a backstory:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic. ... 9#p2302809
and I'm active on the LM forum.

I have tried to make foxclone as simple as possible for newbies. So you won't find all the "bells and whistles" you get in clonezilla. With a target audience of newbies - that's why there is a comprehensive user guide.

zfs - sorry about that, foxclone is a front end for partclone* (as are the alternatives such as rescuezilla) and it only supports a limited number of filesystems, zfs is not one of them. Unfortunately some changes I made in foxclone50 (to recognise exFAT) meant that it tries to image zfs, a self inflicted bug which I've just fixed and hopefully foxclone52 will be out in a few weeks. For unsupported filesystems (includes LVM and LUKS) foxclone should be using dd to image the partition. This works but not ideal, it has to copy the entire partition rather than just used blocks. Takes longer, larger image file. Example from my current testing - vanilla install of mint to 256GB sata SSD, installed size 17GB, image size 3.7GB, time 2-3 mins to nvme. Same with LVM, image size 24GB, time 20-30 mins, it has to image the whole partition. I'm not aware of any utility that will image backup zfs, LVM, LUKS.

The majority of users boot foxclone from a stick using the iso. The deb is there so you can install it in another debian/ubuntu. Probably a statement of the obvious to a lot here, you cannot image backup a live filesystem, so there is no point installing the deb in your normal system. I have a backup drive, it is where my foxclone image backups, timeshift and backintime snapshots live. I have another copy of mint installed to the backup drive and foxclone installed in that. I also have every disaster recovery tool I can think of installed in the backup mint. If I want to take an image backup I boot my backup drive. Saves messing around with usb sticks.

Happy to respond to any questions.

Glad so see the puppy forum uses the same software as the LM forum, I know my way around

* produced by the same team responsible for clonezilla