[SOLVED] duplicate/clone an xbian installation

[mk01]

from beta1 this should not be an issue anymore, thanks to CoW (copy on write) after such situation you will have old version of the file, or new version of the file (new (or changed) data are written to a new location as you would make a copy - only after 'new' copy is successfully written the old one is trashed).

but this doesn't mean a disaster can't happen. together with this snapshots are coming to xbian and rootfs split into system and home. this will allow you to restore your xbian to a previous point in time - and separately the system and xbmc settings (/home dir).

so if system goes wrong, you can revert just system without touching your current XBMC customizations / DBs / add ons etc. and you will be allowed to create snapshots (checkpoints) before each update / change, so if any package / update breaks something you will be able to on-click restore in time without the husle of reinstalling / installing / repairing anything.

(and for those wanting backup on separate media, all the snapshots are possible to send to different drives, similar as let's say create image with dd, but the snapshots are atomic, each part of FS is exactly the same as you would turn off RPi and do a copy offline).

btw; if you are putting so much importance into the actual RPi setup / files, transform RPi to a thin-client. move the filesystem to a mirrored NAS (or similar solution) and boot the RPi directly from network. I'm using it like this, you just needs the small VFAT partition to load network and rootfs is mounted from network directly via NFS.