Arch Linux

Webeule

Member

Registered: 2025-07-26

Posts: 5

Migrating existing Arch installation to new system

Hello,

I need to migrate my existing Arch installation to a new system and want to follow this "Top to bottom" approach using file copy as described here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Migrat … w_hardware

There are two links describing slightly different approaches:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Rsync# … tem_backup
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Rsync# … em_cloning

The second approach does not exclude /dev, /proc, /sys, /tmp, and /run.
Somewhere I read that it could get problems, when these are copied to a new system.

I am also asking, because I am running btrfs and consider to just use snapshots of the subvolumes to transfer the files. But then I need to remove the content of the above mentioned folders (if needed).

What do you suggest?

Best regards
Oliver

HasakeShinonome

Member

Registered: 2025-11-30

Posts: 22

Re: Migrating existing Arch installation to new system

I've transferred an entire SSD from a computer to a completely different one, all I needed to edit was the /etc/fstab file to comply with the change of harddrives and SSD's.You would need to also add-in packages for your hardware and remove ones that are not for your hardware (e.g. removing amdgpu for nvidia or vice versa). I do mention that I did this on a headless server and not a full PC set up but I'd imagine it'd be fine on a desktop anyways. Try using the Full System Backup. The exclusions of the specific folders are because those are made during runtime and don't include necessary saved contents. (Such as /dev/ for drives, /proc/ for processes and /tmp/ for temporary storage)

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,951

Re: Migrating existing Arch installation to new system

It is a procedure of data cloning on a file system level where source and destination file systems do not need to be of the same type.

In 2018 ago my main rig failed and all I had left was a laptop from 2007 . The problem was in the motherboard, the harddrives it used were fine.
I purchased 4 external drive bays, a usb-hub and cloned the whole setup to my biggest external drive using the computer of a friend.

Then I booted up the laptop using the external disk and I had everything back in working order (just  a lot slower).
A few months later I used the cloning method again to transfer everything to my new desktop with 2 drives (ssd) instead of 4 and a different partition lay-out.

For saving and restoring to the same system full system backup works great. For transferring to a different system, file cloning gives a lot more flexibilty.

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky