Subject: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Subject: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation o
n my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Good day from Singapore,

Detailed steps as shown below.

1. Prepare USB thumb drive with System Rescue 13.00 for amd64. This is a 1.
22 GB ISO file download.

2. Boot up Edxis Chromebook or your laptop or your desktop computer or your
server with System Rescue 13.00 USB thumb drive.

3. Connect a portable USB external harddisk to the Edxis Chromebook using a
USB 3.0 Hub.

4. Use the following Linux commands:

# mkdir /backup

Assuming your portable USB external harddisk is /dev/sdb1

# mount /dev/sdb1 /backup

# dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress | gzip -1 > /backup/emmc.i
mg.gz

? Explanation

bs=4M ? good speed for eMMC
status=progress ? shows progress
conv=fsync ? ensures proper flushing (safer image)
gzip -1 ? fast compression (important for you)

? -1 is key:

Much faster than default (-6)
Slightly larger file, but saves a lot of time

The filesize of my emmc.img.gz is 4.71 GB.

The cloning process using dd took 916.149 seconds, which is about 15 minute
s.

Taking about 15 minutes to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on E dxis Chromebook is relatively fast.

Restoring from the backup image file
=========================
============

# gunzip -c emmc.img.gz | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress co
nv=fsync

Once dd finishes:

# sync

Then reboot:

# reboot

? What this does

gunzip -c emmc.img.gz ? decompress image to stdout
| ? pipe into dd
dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 ? writes directly to your eMMC
bs=4M ? good performance
status=progress ? shows progress
conv=fsync ? ensures all data is flushed to disk (important on re
store)

I don't think I will be using Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, Rescuezilla,
or fsarchiver any more since using dd is very fast. About 15 minutes only.
And it resulted in only 1 backup image file which is what I have always wan ted.
1 backup image file is easier to manage.

Regards,

Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming
Extremely Democratic People's Republic of Singapore
9 Apr 2026 Thursday 5.29 pm Singapore Time

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Hi Turritopsis,

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 09:29:42AM +0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

Subject: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Good day from Singapore,

Detailed steps as shown below.

I don't mean to be rude or to stifle the flow of useful information, but
I didn't see anything in your procedure that isn't a normal
run-of-the-mill use of dd to write a disk image, as documented all over
the Internet already. So, I am confused why you decided to send it out
to a mailing list that distributes it into thousands of people's
inboxes.

Maybe there is a better way to do things, depending upon your goals?

If you were to be responding to someone's direct request for assistance,
I think that would be great. But as no one asked specifically about
this, maybe it is for your own notes? If so, may I suggest your blog
would be a better place? (I seem to recall you do or did have one.)

If there was some tricky or unusual part that you needed to do then
maybe a good place for such an article would be the Debian Wiki. However
in this instance, I did not see anything unusual in the procedure, so I
would not say this particular topic is worth another wiki article. Maybe
others in future.

Aside from dropping an unsolicited (in the sense that no one asked, not
that it's spam) mail into people's inboxes, the archives of this list
are not particularly discoverable. Things do show up in web searches
sometimes, but in my experience if they do appear, it is below the wiki
and personal web sites. If the goal was to spread useful information to
later readers, I think a personal blog or wiki article would be more
effective.

Thanks,
Andy

--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 10:55:17AM +0000, Andy Smith wrote:

Hi Turritopsis,

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 09:29:42AM +0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

Subject: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Good day from Singapore,

Detailed steps as shown below.

I don't mean to be rude or to stifle the flow of useful information, but
I didn't see anything in your procedure that isn't a normal [...]

I don't know whether your answer can be qualified as "rude". But I perceived
it as unnecessarily harsh.
Cheers
--
tom s


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

* 2026-04-09 09:29:42+0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

# dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress | gzip -1 > /backup/emmc.img.gz

That is fine.
I think we should ditch "dd" and use a modern program like "pv" for data transfer monitoring. It has good defaults and progress output so usually options are not needed.
pv /dev/whatever | gzip >file.gz
"pv" uses a buffer size that is a multiple of block size of the
filesystem.

# gunzip -c emmc.img.gz | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

Or with "pv":
gzip -dc file.gz | pv --sync --output /dev/whatever -
--
/// Teemu Likonen - .-.. https://www.iki.fi/tlikonen/
// OpenPGP: DD3B8E8ABD28B98176E6A7CCCC9A5E615FCC1D93
/ old key: 6965F03973F0D4CA22B9410F0F2CAE0E07608462


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

09.04.26, 15:02 +0100, tomas@tuxteam.de:

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 10:55:17AM +0000, Andy Smith wrote:

Hi Turritopsis,

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 09:29:42AM +0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

Subject: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Good day from Singapore,

Detailed steps as shown below.

I don't mean to be rude or to stifle the flow of useful information, but
I didn't see anything in your procedure that isn't a normal [...]

I don't know whether your answer can be qualified as "rude". But I perceived it as unnecessarily harsh.

Interesting.
I can't find anything in Andy's answer that I would call harsh (not even remotely).

--
Regards
mks

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Markus Sch”nhaber schreef op 2026-04-09 16:25:

09.04.26, 15:02 +0100, tomas@tuxteam.de:

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 10:55:17AM +0000, Andy Smith wrote:

Hi Turritopsis,

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 09:29:42AM +0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En
Ming wrote:

Subject: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma
installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Good day from Singapore,

Detailed steps as shown below.

I don't mean to be rude or to stifle the flow of useful information,
but
I didn't see anything in your procedure that isn't a normal [...]

I don't know whether your answer can be qualified as "rude". But I
perceived
it as unnecessarily harsh.

Interesting.
I can't find anything in Andy's answer that I would call harsh (not
even
remotely).

Me neither. It's fair criticism, motivated well. Nothing wrong, rude or
harsh about that IMO.

Met vriendelijke groeten,

William David Edwards

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, 09 Apr 2026 16:45:52 +0300
Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:

* 2026-04-09 09:29:42+0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

# dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress | gzip -1 >
/backup/emmc.img.gz

That is fine.

Concur.

I think we should ditch "dd" and use a modern program like "pv" for
data transfer monitoring. It has good defaults and progress output so
usually options are not needed.

pv /dev/whatever | gzip >file.gz

While we're modernizing things, for compression, substitute pigz or
pbzip2 for gzip, and take advantage of multiple processors. They don't
get you much on decompression.

--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Hi,

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 04:25:26PM +0200, Markus Sch?nhaber wrote:

I can't find anything in Andy's answer that I would call harsh (not even remotely).

I'm open to advice on how I could have worded it better. I was just
trying to convey that some things just work better in a blog or wiki
article.

Thanks,
Andy

--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

09.04.26, 17:31 +0200, Andy Smith:

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 04:25:26PM +0200, Markus Sch”nhaber wrote:

I can't find anything in Andy's answer that I would call harsh (not even
remotely).

I'm open to advice on how I could have worded it better. I was just
trying to convey that some things just work better in a blog or wiki
article.

That you direct your reply to my post, makes me think you might have
gotten me wrong.

What I was trying to say is: IMO your post was perfectly fine and
without any rudeness or harshness (or something else that could be
criticized, for that matter).
Therefore, *I* don't know of anything that you should have worded
differently.

--
Regards
mks

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

I have managed to restore from the 4.71 GB backup image file this morning a
t about 10 AM.

The restore processs took 1124.64 seconds, which is about 19 minutes.

After restore and reboot, my Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation is still
working well on my Edxis Chromebook.

I have verified that the 4.71 GB backup image file is a Good Working Copy, which is safe to restore from.

Thank you all.

Regards,

Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming
Extremely Democratic People's Republic of Singapore
10 Apr 2026 Friday 4.11 pm Singapore Time







On Thursday, 9 April 2026 at 5:30 PM, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming <teo. en.ming@protonmail.com> wrote:

Subject: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation

on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Good day from Singapore,

Detailed steps as shown below.

1. Prepare USB thumb drive with System Rescue 13.00 for amd64. This is a

1.22 GB ISO file download.

2. Boot up Edxis Chromebook or your laptop or your desktop computer or yo

ur server with System Rescue 13.00 USB thumb drive.

3. Connect a portable USB external harddisk to the Edxis Chromebook using

a USB 3.0 Hub.

4. Use the following Linux commands:

# mkdir /backup

Assuming your portable USB external harddisk is /dev/sdb1

# mount /dev/sdb1 /backup

# dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress | gzip -1 > /backup/emmc

.img.gz

? Explanation

bs=4M ? good speed for eMMC
status=progress ? shows progress
conv=fsync ? ensures proper flushing (safer image)
gzip -1 ? fast compression (important for you)

? -1 is key:

Much faster than default (-6)
Slightly larger file, but saves a lot of time

The filesize of my emmc.img.gz is 4.71 GB.

The cloning process using dd took 916.149 seconds, which is about 15 minu

tes.

Taking about 15 minutes to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on

Edxis Chromebook is relatively fast.

Restoring from the backup image file
========================

=============

# gunzip -c emmc.img.gz | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress

conv=fsync

Once dd finishes:

# sync

Then reboot:

# reboot

? What this does

gunzip -c emmc.img.gz ? decompress image to stdout
| ? pipe into dd
dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 ? writes directly to your eMMC
bs=4M ? good performance
status=progress ? shows progress
conv=fsync ? ensures all data is flushed to disk (important on

restore)

I don't think I will be using Acronis True Image, Clonezilla, Rescuezilla

, or fsarchiver any more since using dd is very fast. About 15 minutes only
. And it resulted in only 1 backup image file which is what I have always w anted.

1 backup image file is easier to manage.

Regards,

Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming
Extremely Democratic People's Republic of Singapore
9 Apr 2026 Thursday 5.29 pm Singapore Time

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 03:02:04PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 10:55:17AM +0000, Andy Smith wrote:

Hi Turritopsis,

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 09:29:42AM +0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

Subject: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Good day from Singapore,

Detailed steps as shown below.

I don't mean to be rude or to stifle the flow of useful information, but
I didn't see anything in your procedure that isn't a normal [...]

I don't know whether your answer can be qualified as "rude". But I perceived it as unnecessarily harsh.

OK, and since there were other, dissenting perceptions around, I'll try
to explain:
- of course, I described my perception. It may well be "wrong". It's
definitely subjective.
- my feeling is: we know Turritopsis Dohrnii's style. They are around
here for a while. For some of us it feels somewhat "alien". I think
it is a normal thing to happen when our communities expand beyond the
small, homogeneous circles they once were. But this is a Good Thing!
- so I guess we should develop some tolerance for different styles
(yes, yes, that includes myself: I'm sure I've failed that ideal more
than once, and I will. Remind me).
To sketch a practical proposal (not that I expect you to follow it:
rather to "sketch the idea in code"), I'd try to formulate this critique
in a more personal way, i.e. *to me*, this and this in your post/way
of posting is confusing (granted, in your OP there is at least one
hint in that direction).
But, see above. Quite possibly my feeling is misled.
Cheers
--
t


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Intentionally top posting, and not sure this reply is worth posting, but ... Note: in an earlier post, Mr. Turritopsis (I don't know of the preferred short form of his name, if there is one) posed a question. Then, in the post that has been the subject of discussion, he answered his own question, which, imo, was a reasonable / nice thing to do.
The unfortunate thing is that his second post did not reference (e.g., was not a reply to) his earlier post, which made things confusing.
On Wednesday, April 08, 2026 11:39:10 AM Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

Can I use Acronis True Image to clone (backup) my Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on Edxis Chromebook model LI9 to a SINGLE image file? I know Acronis True Image can clone harddisks or SSDs with operating systems into
a SINGLE image file with filename extension .tibx.

Clonezilla is NOT desirable because it clones storage devices into so many different files.

If you are aware of a better cloning software for Linux, please let me
know.

----< nothing new below this line >---
On Friday, April 10, 2026 05:17:40 AM tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 03:02:04PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 10:55:17AM +0000, Andy Smith wrote:

Hi Turritopsis,

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 09:29:42AM +0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En

Ming wrote:

Subject: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

Good day from Singapore,

Detailed steps as shown below.

I don't mean to be rude or to stifle the flow of useful information,
but I didn't see anything in your procedure that isn't a normal [...]

I don't know whether your answer can be qualified as "rude". But I perceived it as unnecessarily harsh.

OK, and since there were other, dissenting perceptions around, I'll try
to explain:

- of course, I described my perception. It may well be "wrong". It's
definitely subjective.
- my feeling is: we know Turritopsis Dohrnii's style. They are around
here for a while. For some of us it feels somewhat "alien". I think
it is a normal thing to happen when our communities expand beyond the
small, homogeneous circles they once were. But this is a Good Thing!
- so I guess we should develop some tolerance for different styles
(yes, yes, that includes myself: I'm sure I've failed that ideal more
than once, and I will. Remind me).

To sketch a practical proposal (not that I expect you to follow it:
rather to "sketch the idea in code"), I'd try to formulate this critique
in a more personal way, i.e. *to me*, this and this in your post/way
of posting is confusing (granted, in your OP there is at least one
hint in that direction).

But, see above. Quite possibly my feeling is misled.

Cheers

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-04-09, Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> wrote:

On Thu, 09 Apr 2026 16:45:52 +0300
Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> wrote:

* 2026-04-09 09:29:42+0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:

# dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M status=progress | gzip -1 >
/backup/emmc.img.gz

That is fine.

Concur.

I think we should ditch "dd" and use a modern program like "pv" for
data transfer monitoring. It has good defaults and progress output so
usually options are not needed.

pv /dev/whatever | gzip >file.gz

While we're modernizing things, for compression, substitute pigz or
pbzip2 for gzip, and take advantage of multiple processors. They don't
get you much on decompression.

I don't understand pv. In apt show pv it says to insert it in a pipeline between two processes. What are the two processes here?

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 4/9/26 8:45 AM, Teemu Likonen wrote:

Or with "pv":

gzip -dc file.gz | pv --sync --output /dev/whatever -

So one drawback with this, that I ran into is:
nwe@deb13:~$ pv
bash: pv: command not found
For anyone working a lot on isolated "air-gapped" networks with no quick
easy access to the apt repositories, pv is thus less useful.
I don't recall having ever had to install dd. I installed pv and skimmed
over its man page. Yes, I can see it looks useful. While depending on dd
gets me the benefit of being able to expect it is going to be there when
I need it without having to install it first.
-- Thanks, all!
I learn a lot, following these discussions :)


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

* 2026-04-10 15:53:07+0000, CGS wrote:

I don't understand pv. In apt show pv it says to insert it in a
pipeline between two processes. What are the two processes here?

In this context processes are programs that print output and handle
input. They can be connected with pipe and "pv" can be in the middle:
program1 | pv | program2
The data goes unchanged through "pv" but it shows progress information
in the standard error stream. So, "pv" is like "dd" or even "cat", but
better for data transfer monitoring.
See the EXAMPLES section in the man page but I'll give a couple of
useful:
sudo pv /dev/zero -o /dev/targetdrive
sudo pv disc-image.img --sync -o /dev/targetdrive
--
/// Teemu Likonen - .-.. https://www.iki.fi/tlikonen/
// OpenPGP: DD3B8E8ABD28B98176E6A7CCCC9A5E615FCC1D93
/ old key: 6965F03973F0D4CA22B9410F0F2CAE0E07608462


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 4/10/26 09:28, nwe wrote:

On 4/9/26 8:45 AM, Teemu Likonen wrote:

Or with "pv":

ÿÿÿÿ gzip -dc file.gz | pv --sync --output /dev/whatever -

So one drawback with this, that I ran into is:

nwe@deb13:~$ pv
bash: pv: command not found

For anyone working a lot on isolated "air-gapped" networks with no quick easy access to the apt repositories, pv is thus less useful.

I don't recall having ever had to install dd. I installed pv and skimmed over its man page. Yes, I can see it looks useful. While depending on dd gets me the benefit of being able to expect it is going to be there when
I need it without having to install it first.

I try to use with "lowest common denominator" tools for backups,
archives, images, etc., so that the tools are available "out of the box"
on the platforms I use -- Linux (including Debian), BSD, Cygwin, and
MacOS -- sh(1), bash(1), tar(1), gzip(1), dd(1), etc.. That said, some platforms do require additional packages/modules -- ssh(1), sshd(8),
rsync(1), perl(1), various Perl modules, etc.. I have looked at newer
tools that offer parallel computation via multi-core/thread processors,
and either have found that they are missing on one or more platforms or
have wondered if they would be around in 10, 20, etc., years.


David

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

tomas@tuxteam.de writes:

(...)
- so I guess we should develop some tolerance for different styles

I agree. That's exactly what i wanted to say.

(...)

Sincerely, Byunghee

--
^????? _????_ ?????_^))//


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Notes on using dd to clone Debian 13.4.0 KDE Plasma installation on my Edxis Chromebook model LI9

On Sat, Apr 11, 2026 at 08:36:24PM +0900, Byunghee HWANG (???) wrote:

tomas@tuxteam.de writes:

(...)
- so I guess we should develop some tolerance for different styles

I agree. That's exactly what i wanted to say.

Byunghee, you are a nice person. It's good to have people like you
around here.
Cheers
--
t


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)