If you’re a Linux user, you surely have heard the name of “dd” tool. It’s one of the most powerful features of Linux that provides tremendous power over backing up your drive, writing image files to drive and much more.

However, dd is a command line tool – no GUI available officially. I know that experts and experienced users love the CLI because it provides more power over the system than the GUI tool but for most users, GUI is the preferred method. That’s why let’s check out the GUI tool of dd – GdiskDump.

Don’t forget to check out the easiest management of the biggest files and directories of your Linux system!

Preparing the system

Before installing GdiskDump, we have to install the dependencies. The tool depends on the following dependencies –

• Python2
• PyGTK2 or PyGTK
• python-notify or python2-notify

If you’re in Ubuntu/Debian, run the following commands for installing the dependencies –

sudo apt install python-gtk2 python python-notify

For other Linux distros, check out Pkgs.org to get the appropriate installation package.

Installing GdiskDump

For Ubuntu/Debian users, run the following commands –

wget https://launchpad.net/gdiskdump/trunk/0.8/+download/gdiskdump_0.8-1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i gdiskdump_0.8-1_all.deb

For installing from the source code, run the following commands –

wget https://launchpad.net/gdiskdump/trunk/0.8/+download/gdiskdump-0.8.tar.gz

tar -xvzf gdiskdump-0.8.tar.gz

cd gdiskdump-0.8
make
make install

Using GdiskDump

For starting the tool, run the following command in the terminal –

sudo gdiskdump

You’ll notice that there are a number of available options as input – File, Harddrive and Partition.

The “File” option is to burn ISO/IMG to a target device, for example, to USB flash drive. Let’s check it out. Here, I’ve selected the file option and in the in-app browser, I’ve selected the Lubuntu ISO. Click “Forward”.

Connect your USB device to the computer. In the output window, select “Partition”. You’ll notice that there is the USB flash drive partition. Select it and click “Forward”.

Now, you can define a number of custom options. For the explanation of all of them, check out the DD man page. Once you’re ready, click “OK”.

Wait for the process to complete.

Just like that, you can take backup of an entire partition and/or hard drive or clone it. All you have to do is select the correct input and output format. Note that each of the processes will take long time to complete.