I don't have time to go into it tonight but you can do P2V on Linux machines fairly easily.
The short version:
Build a VM using LSI Logic as the driver type for the disk. Don't install an OS, just build the raw disk to be the size of your source disk
On your Source machine ($SOURCE): Boot off a Linux rescue disk and get to a prompt in single user mode with networking enabled. Do the same with your Target machine($TARGET)
On $TARGET enter
time dd if=/dev/sda | nc $TARGET_IP 9999
On $SOURCE, enter
nc -l 9999 | dd of=/dev/sda
You'll have to edit /etc/modprobe.conf, /etc/fstab, /boot/grub.conf, and do a mkinitrd, once the disk image is copied. Freepmail me if you want more information. I just did some testing with this, and am in the process of writing up some documentation.
Wow! Thanks for the information!
Now it’s going to be difficult for me to bring myself to use it on one of my Linux machines because it’s at 428 days of uptime, and I’d like to see how far it will go. :p
I know that’s nothing compared to some others I’ve heard of, but it’s off to a good start. lol