Would it be useful to have someone create a Poll to see how many people use/prefer various Rescue/Imaging tools and give those a rating (0-10) ?
Those that come immediately to mind are:
Rescuezilla
Clonezilla
Redo Rescue
System Rescue
Systemback 2
and should something like "Boot Repair Disk" be in its own category, or lumped into the above grouping, but with obviously fewer capabilities reflected in its rating ?
Should that Poll throw
Distroshare,
Respin, or
Ubuntu Customization Kit
into the mix, as well ?
Should that be done on the primary Ubuntu support site and the link posted as an announcement site on each of the various Ubuntu distro Discourse sites ?
Just wondering!
Also, I've seen APTonCD in the past, and that really didn't do it for me, but is there any tool out that that is similar in functionality to create a (set of) CD(s) that would be an image of the packages used for the currently running installed system and configuration?
Feel free to create a poll topic in Uncategorized or Cuppa n' Brew. We can pin it for a month if we want to run a "poll of the month, for fun!"
The builder is under on the toolbar, but to consider:
Discourse's polls are either single choice or multiple choice, so it might have to be a "choose the top 3" kind of poll.
Like I haven't used Redo Rescue before, so what do I put?
If you want the wider Ubuntu community's opinion, you probably want to post at discourse.ubuntu.com if they allow it.
Results will be split/skewed if it's posted separately in each one. Members may not have accounts on the other site, or people vote twice (bias).
Usefulness wise, my question is: What is the poll's intentions? Is it whether we've used it before, or what's the best option for 2025 (and to do.... what? backup? cloning? repair? custom ISOs?)
Certainly, for me, the focus would be ... what is the "verified-best tool" now, but I can certainly see the the allure/value of what has "demonstrated track record".
My perspective on an Imaging/Rescue tool is threefold:
[Level 1] create an image that can be used as "benchmark reference" for performing "minimal" system repairs after "corruption". This is essentially software-level "host recovery".
[Level 2] create an image that can be installed on a virgin disk on the same computer (a.k.a. rebuild root disk with pre-configured settings other than references to disk's UUID). This is essentially hardware-level "host recovery".
[Level 3 ] create an image that can be installed on a "bare-metal" system (a.k.a. rebuild host with pre-configured setting after somebody dropped computer into a "shredder"). This is essentially "host replication".
Since my focus is Desktop (UbuntuMATE), my requirements at Level 3 interventionneed not [Class B] address the "host-swapout" scenario and perform necessary IPC (inter-process communication) and re-configuration for instant recognition/integration by peer hosts within a complex inter-dependant network [Class A].
Regarding you very valid point about bias introduced by separate poll for each Ubuntu discourse group, is there no "Discourse" functionality/option that allows a posted item to be shared/viewable by all groups identified as "Peer groups" ? Given Discourse was conceived to address Corporate needs as well, it seems to me that ability would have been a "must-have" feature SPOC (single point of contact) for posting Corporate-wide communications being visible on all Channels/Communities for that Corporation. ( ... or is that me just imagining a world more perfect than can be ? )
While I have always appreciated "dd" as a perfect tool for dumping disk content to HP 7970 industrial backup 9-track tapes, I've never trusted it enough to do much else. That was too "low-level" for me, for most things. I prefer using the "tar" facility which, admittedly, is higher-level and more abstracted.
A possible way around that is to have the poll conducted on another system (or a free online service with anonymous voting).
Enterprises would probably have a single sign-on system (SSO), a little bit like Ubuntu One, where users would login to each site with one set of credentials, of which Ubuntu's Discourse, Launchpad, ubuntuforums.org, etc uses. Still would be classed as a different user per site.
Anyway, the only closest thing is what Discourse calls "featured topics". If you created the poll on one of the Ubuntu discourses, you can paste the link as a new topic title on the other one, which turns it into a slightly more fancier way of linking to the other Discourse's topic. Users would still need to sign up to the other site.