Arch Linux

S.C.Franklin

Member

Registered: 2024-05-22

Posts: 21

migrating to arch

I installed arch linux to a new disk and am wondering what is the best way to transfer my files and programs from my old arcolinux disk to the new one.

unixman

Member

Registered: 2015-03-12

Posts: 115

Re: migrating to arch

mount each disk then copy/paste from one to other.
thats newbie friendly way.

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 1,544

Re: migrating to arch

as for "files" as in "everything but the OS itself and packages installed from the repos": they should be on different partitions already (separate /home and other mountpoints) - so just mount them wheere they were mounted to
as for "prgrams" as in "packages installed from the repos": install them via pacman - that's the proper way

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,422

Website

Re: migrating to arch

Programs:
The best way is to install what you actually needed, as you need it. You’ll get rid of some clutter this way and save yourself a lot of work. But if you still insist on moving the installed packages, this shouldn’t be too hard.

Arco Linux used Pacman. So you can list packages installed there by running your Arco Linux and invoking:

pacman -Qentq > packages.txt

This list can be later fed to Pacman on Arch to install the packages:

cat packages.txt | sudo pacman -S --needed -

You’ll have to manually weed out packages present on Arco, but not on Arch, if any.

If there are any packages you managed yourself (you built them from PKGBUILD), you have to rebuild them all on Arch. The same applies to manually built stuff installed in “/usr/local” or “/opt”.

System configuration:
You will have to merge (not copy!) all the configuration files in “/etc”. Following “List changed backup files” section may be useful to get list of what you actually need to move.

System data:
Directories in “/var/lib” can generally be copied, if they are still needed. “/var/lib/cache” and “/var/lib/logs” may probably be ignored. Other stuff may require additional operations, like making sure your databases are compatible with the package version installed (if you use any of course). Migration best done one by one.

Your own data:
Generally you can just blindly rsync (manual) them all. With a few notes:

• You may skip the entire cache directory (“~/.cache”). Everything there should be rebuilt.⁽¹⁾

• The configuration directory (“~/.config”) may be incompatible with your current Arch packages. Unlikely, given the context, but may happen.

• The files in data directory (“~/.local”) may be incompatible in the same manner. But since those are usually more valuable than configs and likely to be changed by programs, it’s worth keeping backups of all the originals for some a short time after transition. Until you know everything is compatible and works.

____
⁽¹⁾ If any software kept any valuable data there, complain to the authors. This should have never been the case.

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Sometimes I seem a bit harsh — don’t get offended too easily!

Stratoblaster

Member

From: Earth

Registered: 2018-12-04

Posts: 60

Re: migrating to arch

I installed arch linux to a new disk and am wondering what is the best way to transfer my files and programs from my old arcolinux disk to the new one.

If you have not seen this, this could be helpful:   https://www.arcolinux.info/a-farewell-t … niversity/

From what I can see, there isn't much for you to do to transition to Arch. It appears the devs at Arco, did this for you.

Last edited by Stratoblaster (2025-07-10 01:22:44)

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Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

schard

Forum Moderator

From: Hannover

Registered: 2016-05-06

Posts: 2,305

Website

Re: migrating to arch

cat packages.txt | sudo pacman -S --needed -

Useless use of cat

sudo pacman -S --needed - < packages.txt

scnr

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Inofficial first vice president of the Rust Evangelism Strike Force