[clug] Want to Virtualise an old Debian Potato System

[Steve Barnes]

> G'day all,
> I have a "legacy" Debian Potato (2.2.19) system with some proprietary
> software and iBCS installed. This is way out of date and is being (slowly) replaced.
>
> As part of the migration we are getting MS server 2012 systems installed very soon.
> I was thinking of taking advantage of the Hyper V and seeing if I can get my Debian system installed as a VM.
>
> Anyone have any experience or recommendations on how to go about doing this?
> Will 2012 Hyper v support this system? It is running on hardware that is circa 2005
> I can get copy of the filesystems and partitions onto a physical disk.  That is easy.
> What I do not understand (among many other things :-) is how to get that into a VM image that will run.
> Any help or advice appreciated.
> Thanks,

Stephen,

Can't comment on HyperV support.

Re the filesystem and partition migration, assuming I understand you 
correctly, I would consider using 2 copies of Clonezilla.

Set up your VM under HyperV. Ensure networking is correct/functional.

Boot the VM into Clonezilla, set it ready to receive a disk image over 
the network.

Boot your Potato into Clonezilla and follow the on screen prompts to 
blast the disk image over the network into the waiting VM instance.

Reboot and (hopefully) enjoy.

Of course, this all assumes HyperV and Clonezilla play nicely together.

You could probably achieve a similar outcome using a combination of 
single user mode/live CD/rescue mode and dd|gzip|nc on both ends...

Hope this helps

Steve