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I have been working on Ubuntu for a while and I was wondering if there is a way to create an image (ISO) of the current system with all its software and files, basically something very similar to what AWS or other cloud services offer where we can save the state of a machine. Now if I were to load this ISO on another machine, it would ideally be an exact copy of the software, files, etc on a new machine.

I tried this with the blog here. https://itslinuxfoss.com/how-to-create-an-iso-from-current-installation-in-ubuntu-22-04/

It didn't work and only backed up the files. I also tried to load the ISO on the VM directly that didn't work as well.

Any help is appreciated in achieving this! Thank you.

Van Wilder
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    If the target computers are rather similar, and/or Linux can use the built-in hardware drivers, you can clone the installed system and use it in another computer. It is a good idea to prepare the system for an OEM system installation in order to make it easy to give the target (cloned) copies unique identities. See this link about OEM and this link about a compressed image of Ubuntu Server. – sudodus May 02 '23 at 13:25
  • What if the target computers have a different hardware? How do people make customized installation images of ubuntu for themselves with all the software etc? – Van Wilder May 03 '23 at 10:06
  • A fair amount of variations of hardware can be managed by the Linux built-in hardware drivers. Typical exceptions: [newer] nvidia graphics, broadcom wifi. - Special case: When installed from an Ubuntu Server iso file, the network will be hardcoded to the computer hardware, but when starting from a compressed image of Ubuntu Server, it will be portable (like the case when installed from an Ubuntu Desktop iso file). - Individual customization of software must be done in a similar way both when cloned via an OEM system and via installing from an iso file. – sudodus May 03 '23 at 11:07
  • After installing and testing a complete custom system (for example according to the methods described above followed by individual customization), an individual image can be made with Clonezilla. – sudodus May 03 '23 at 11:11
  • All I really want to do is install generic software such as nginx or docker and keep it in the ISO so that when my OS is installed, it has docker out of the box. Can I establish that? – Van Wilder May 04 '23 at 12:29
  • You can do that the way I describe in the previous comments. You can do it also by creating a custom iso file, but I think it is much more difficult to create a custom iso file. There are some tools available, the classical one is Remastersys, but I don't think it is maintained (will probably not work with current versions of Ubuntu). There are other (newer) tools, maybe forked from the classical one, for example Cubic, and there are tutorials, how to do it from scratch. I think Cubic is made for Ubuntu Desktop, I don't know how it works with Ubuntu Server. – sudodus May 04 '23 at 14:30

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