[b]ntfsclone could be used.[/b] In my opinion, it should be used when Partimage has failed, which PING detects in some cases (not all), and when the FS type is NTFS, obviously. In these situations, we presently use zsplit, which is almost as good as ntfsclone, except for the dont-store-not-used-clusters feature ntfsclone has. In all other cases (no partimage success, no NTFS FS), then we should go on with zsplit.

Concerning [b]partimage-ng[/b], I must first say I support the developpers' initiative very much. Yet, it still seems very new, and we'll have to test it a lot before proposing it. Even then, I think default record app should remain old partimage for some time, with partimage-ng as an available option (same as today, when users can choose zsplit over partimage). I'm confident that in less than a year, they might become a standard app for everyone, at least because they use libntfs from ntfsprogs-2.0, which partimage does not (and could not do either, since it didn't exist when partimage has been released first).




When using MULTI, few issues/comments.
1. When a cd is finished, the tray opens. After 30 seconds or so, it automatically closes again. Scratched a cd pretty heavily one time when it started closing on me as I was putting a cd on the tray. Can PING be made to not close the tray after the 30 seconds? I thought it was auto closing because it would automatically start using the next CD without typing /mnt/cdrom/hda1.00x but it never did. I always had to type it out.
2. MULTI seems to work when you have a single partition that you are spanning across multiple CDs, but it did not work for me for the last cdrom. When hda1 finished, I expected it to open the CD tray and prompt for last CD. Instead, PING exited to the shell. I ended up setting the last rom up as it's own boot and PING copied hda2,3,4 from it. All in all I was able to get it to work, but putting a MULTI file on the final cd for hda1 did nothing to make PING prompt for hda2, 3 and 4.
3. hda2,3,4 were originally extended partitions. PING had issues with them. I was able to convert them to primary and then PING had no issues.

cd1 files (AUTO,hda, hda1.000, hda1.first_sectors, initrd.gz, isolinux.bin, isolinux.cfg, kernel, MULTI)
cd2-9 files (hda1.00x, MULTI)
cd10 files (AUTO, hda, hda2.first_sectors, hda3.000, hda3.first_secotrs, hda4.000, hda4.first_sectors, intrd.gz, isolinux.bin, isolinux.cfg, kernal) 




I have the same problem on some of my laptops.
such as:
HP compaq nx9010
Gateway MX6453
I have Ubuntu on my laptop (gateway mx6453) and it (ubuntu) detected and is working with my Ethernet card just fine. 




Hi there!

wget is used, along with lftp/ncftp, on the WINNER image (which project is not maintained), for such a purpose. I must say it works fine, and that the http protocol can be preferred to smb/cifs, for http routes are generally open.

I don't think it would be very hard to add the option to use wget. Yet, this means...:
- asking for the server url, if http is to be used
- asking for user/password, if ftp is to be used
- asking for proxy settings
- testing the availability of the url
- downloading and checking checksums (file.md5 should be available on the server)

Now, the problem would be: where would we store the downloaded files before using them!

A way could be to use tools like ftpmount instead of wget, but reliability would probably be questionable. Another way could be to dynamically make space on the local HDD, by partitionning the disk, before and after the partimage process. And a third way could be to download small parts of images, and restore them one after the other -- which means MULTI if old partimage is used, which is not good -- but other tools might work better (ntfsclone ?).

This is for getting files. Now, backuping a local system and storing these files remotely on a http/ftp share would be another story -- assuming such an option would be useful to anyone. Yet, there would be several ways to do it, too, similar to those proposed for the restorations.

As you see, that's something difficult, yet feasible. The first step will be to add wget, and ftpmount to the next release, so you can, at least, make some manual testing, and tell me what methods should be preferred.

Regards
Natan