convert to branched qcow2

[ppw0]

Hi there,

I was wondering if you had any ideas about converting an existing wim file, with, say three images with plenty of files in common, to three qcow2 files, where one file is the base image and the other two "branch off" from it, similarly to how VMware does linked clones.

One wim image would be deployed onto one qcow2 image, then you could create a linked qcow2 clone with qemu-img. If the second wim image has plenty of files in common with the first, will this be reflected in the linked qcow2 clone? Does wimapply work like that? If I deploy a second wim image on top of an existing partition, will it leave the files that are the same untouched?

[ppw0]

Looks like I answered my own question:

Code: Select all

Applying image 2 ("IMAGE2") from "/install.wim" to NTFS volume "/dev/nbd0p4"
[ERROR] Error creating "/Documents and Settings" in NTFS volume: File exists
ERROR: Exiting with error code 46:
       NTFS-3G encountered an error (check errno).

Hm. I wonder what to do now. I can't find any other way to achieve file-level deduplication on multiple qcow2 images.