i want to test debian trixie (13) so i can report bugs and troubleshoot before the release later this year. i thought about simply installing trixie alongside my current bookworm installation, but that won’t be my scenario when the time comes, since i’ve been updating my system instead of reinstalling it since debian jessie (8) and this time it won’t be different. how can i clone my current system so i can simulate an update to trixie? do i simply create a new partition and copy my files over, then chroot to it and install grub?
This is literally what dd does and what I would have recommended, if this person hadn’t beaten me to it.
However, if you’re cloning to another disk or partition that will be plugged in at the same time as your existing installation, you’ll wind up with two partitions with the same identifier — a recipe for eventual disaster. In that case, I would run through setup (with your current disk unplugged) and then rsync over the new root partition.