How to backup entire linux system with partitions

You could try a tool called partimage it is quite useful for cloning prtititions...

sudo apt-get install partimage

sbackup is quite a nice simple backup tool

Also take a look at this (somewhat scary) page. At the bottom it lists some backup tools (including partimage as mentioned by Jonathan):-

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem

Thank u very much.
Now it is ok if i backup entire ubuntu system and burnt a CD of that .tgz image. For example, in future my system may corrupted so that i may not even logon to terminal or command line interface. This time how can i restore the system using the image which is burnt into a CD as there is no chance to unzip .tgz image in the terminal?
Also suggest me which one to use for back up --- creating .tgz file or Partimage.

In your case I would suggest going with something relatively simple, like tar or Mondo Rescue. This page outlines a "quick and dirty" way to backup your system to a bootable CD that will allow you to restore the data right off it.
http://www.mondorescue.org/docs/mondorescue-howto.html#QUICKSTART

I also suggest reading the notes on tar use on the Ubuntu "BackipUpYourSystem" wiki page carefully, it answers almost all of the questions you asked about tar:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem
Note that if you use tar to backup your system, you may face some issues like the CD that you burn the tar file to won't be bootable, and that if you use DVD recordables, your tar files can't be more than 2 gigs. This is why I suggested Mondo Rescue as a more straightforward solution.

Can i restore the previous version of ubuntu, which i had backed up already into a tar ball *.tgz, if the current newer version became corrupted (or something sort of that) during/after updation to newer version?

Hello everybody
Please, can anybody respond to my previous request?
I'm awaiting for your response.

Well the method of restore entirely depends on how you backed up in the first place. How exactly did you backup the old release? What does the tarball contain? (you can use tar -tvf tarballname.tgz to see the contents list).

With Mondo Rescue you can do that.
I suggest reading the howto Rouben pointed you to.

Mondo Rescue is great.

Hello Alan,
I backed up entire old release of ubuntu from root. I backed up entire filesystem from root directory. If i do like this, can i restore previous version of ubuntu if current newer version of ubuntu corrupts?

But what did you do to perform the backup? Without knowing what you did to make the backup I wouldn't vouch any confidence on the restore.

when i do "sudo apt-get install partimage" it is saying "could not find package partimage". How can i install partimage?
I downloaded .iso image file of system-rescue CD which also contained partimage including gparted and other tools. If partimage runs from that CD, how and where will the image of a partition will save?

partimage is in the "universe" repository which you will have to enable in Synaptic under

Settings > Repositories

You can check off everything under "Internet" [source is not necessary unless you need access to source code of the applications]

Searching for partimage should now return results.

If you go the system-rescue CD route you can back up your image to an external hard disk or set up partimage to back up over a network I believe using FTP...

I recently recieved advice from here <http://vorian.org/?p=136>
However, i want have my whole system on CD, but i want to restore it
without changes to my grub. Can anyone help?