On 23/07/12 02:07 AM, Andrei POPESCU wrote:

On Du, 22 iul 12, 22:41:52, Gary Dale wrote:

So what you really need is a copy of the files on /boot and /. You
don't need the swap space and you don't need the empty space in the
main partition.

Nope, what I really need is something that would fit here:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

Kind regards,
Andrei
In that case, simply do a dd but limit the number of blocks written to
2G worth.


If you zero the swap partition first, this will make the file more
compressible. You can also zero the empty space on the main partition,
which should make it also compress quite well. BitShredder can do this.
If the partition has the free space zeroed, it should compress down to a
manageable size.


After you've created the image, compress it.


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On Mon, 23 Jul 2012, Gary Dale wrote:
> compressible. You can also zero the empty space on the main
> partition, which should make it also compress quite well.
> BitShredder can do this. If the partition has the free space zeroed,
> it should compress down to a manageable size.

On most filesystems (not on btrfs, for example), "dd if=/dev/zero
of=somefile bs=1M ; rm somefile" (as root) will happily zero all the data
area in the filesystem that hosts somefile (provided it is otherwise idle).
Zeroing stale metadata areas is filesystem-version-specific, dangerous, and
not worth the effort.

--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh


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On Mon, 23 Jul 2012, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Jul 2012, Gary Dale wrote:
> > compressible. You can also zero the empty space on the main
> > partition, which should make it also compress quite well.
> > BitShredder can do this. If the partition has the free space zeroed,
> > it should compress down to a manageable size.
>
> On most filesystems (not on btrfs, for example), "dd if=/dev/zero
> of=somefile bs=1M ; rm somefile" (as root) will happily zero all the data
> area in the filesystem that hosts somefile (provided it is otherwise idle).
> Zeroing stale metadata areas is filesystem-version-specific, dangerous, and
> not worth the effort.

Ah yes, better disclaim it: that's for spinning rust and RAM-based
drives only! Don't do it on solid-state devices with limited
write-cycles such as FLASH-based devices (i.e. SSDs, pendrives, SD
cards...).

--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh


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On Monday 23 July 2012 2:07:42 am Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Du, 22 iul 12, 22:41:52, Gary Dale wrote:
> > So what you really need is a copy of the files on /boot and /. You
> > don't need the swap space and you don't need the empty space in the
> > main partition.
>
> Nope, what I really need is something that would fit here:
>
> http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

I think what you want to do is here:

http://darkdust.net/writings/diskimagesminihowto

Seems to me that the RPi folks used this technique to create the images.

Rick Thomas suggested a one-liner to create the img file that looks like it
should work well.

Another suggestion....ask the kind folks at RPi. (They are almost as nice as
the folks on the Debian list)

Mark


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On Lu, 23 iul 12, 10:48:29, Mark Neidorff wrote:
> On Monday 23 July 2012 2:07:42 am Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > On Du, 22 iul 12, 22:41:52, Gary Dale wrote:
> > > So what you really need is a copy of the files on /boot and /. You
> > > don't need the swap space and you don't need the empty space in the
> > > main partition.
> >
> > Nope, what I really need is something that would fit here:
> >
> > http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads
>
> I think what you want to do is here:
>
> http://darkdust.net/writings/diskimagesminihowto

I thought about zeroing the card in advance and also about creating the
big partition smaller. There are tips in there to not copy the
unpartitioned space which should help in this case

> Another suggestion....ask the kind folks at RPi. (They are almost as
> nice as the folks on the Debian list)

Sure, but I don't like forums at all

Kind regards
Andrei
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