How to migrate current OS to PINN?

[MlgmXyysd]

I currently have Raspbian installed on an NVMe drive (connected to Pi 5 via USB). How should I migrate it to PINN?

[procount]

Can you elaborate on exactly what you want to do?
Do you want to migrate Raspbian (now called Raspberry Pi OS or Raspios) to PINN to put on another storage device, or do you want to migrate the NVME drive to PINN so that you can run Raspios plus other OSes from your NVME, or something else?
What is your end goal?

[MlgmXyysd]

Yes, I have a Raspberry Pi OS instance installed on an NVMe drive that boots via USB. I want to migrate it to a PINN and install it on this NVMe for multi-boot.

[procount]

OK. So you will need to backup your existing Raspios first in case anything goes wrong. You will need another drive (USB stick, SD card etc) that is big enough to store it. Please test it to make sure it is a good backup. You could use the SD Card Copier built into Raspios, Pi-Safe, image-backup, or simply dd if your backup drive is large enough.

You then need to convert your existing Raspios into a format suitable for installation by PINN. Instructions for how to do this can be found on my wiki: https://github.com/procount/pinn/wiki/How-to-Create-a-Multi-Boot-SD-card-out-of-2-existing-OSes-using-PINN
This explains how to convert 2 OSes, but of course you only need to follow the Raspios instructions. You will need a large USB drive to perform this conversion.

Step 4 of those instructions explains how to install PINN. You can follow these instrcutions, although these days it would be easier to use Rpi-Imager to install PINN 3.9.8 directly from the internet to your NVME. This will erase your NVME, so make sure your previous backup is good before doing this in case anything goes wrong.

Finally, you can use PINN to install your new Raspios installation from your USB drive along with any other OSes from the internet. If you are not sure which ones you want to install, install some ProjectSpaces to reserve some space for them in the future. It is not possible to ADD more OSes later, you can only CHANGE the OSes that are already installed. ProjectSpaces are are only useful for reserving space for standard installations that have 2 partitions. If you want to install something that has a different layout (e.g. LineageOS Android which has 4 partitions) then you should install this now as this cannot replace a standard ProjectSpace.