quickly partition disk, copy an image, install grub

From: Matt Price (matt.price_at_utoronto.ca)
Date: 09/20/05

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    To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Date:  Tue, 20 Sep 2005 09:20:33 -0400

    Hi,

    I have to install ubuntu or something similar on about 20 aging
    workstations without cd drives. THese are donated boxes with small hard
    drives (as small as 2.1 gig, but not all identical) all wiped clean.

    my thought is: do a workstation install of ubuntu on one drive and get
    it all cleaned up the way I want it; shrink the partition down to a
    minimum size to avoid copying lots of empty sectors; make a disk image
    with dd; shutdown, install a second drive;and then:

    fdisk /dev/hdb, and set up / and swap partitions
    mkswap /dev/hdb5 # do I need to do this?
                            # Do I need to create an e2fs fs on /dev/hdb1?
    dd if=/path/to/image of=/dev/hdb1 # will this work if the partitions
                                             # are not of exactly equal size?
    dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=448 count=1 # does this install GRUB?

    so, my question is: is this the right way to go about this? am I
    missing any steps? is there a better way to do it?

    thanks much,

    matt 

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