Fresh Arch for my new laptop (It's giving me brain pain)

festizio · 2011-08-08 00:46:40

Well its time to setup Arch on my new laptop... The Toshiba I currently use has served me quite well for about 3 years. During its lifetime Arch was only installed once and with the rolling rls model I have never had a problem. With that being said I do have to admit that I have become quite comfortable with the way everything is setup. As most of you know it can be a bit of a pain to try and remember all the tiny mods/hacks/changes one may have made during a 3 year period.

So I ask you, what does one do to migrate most of that to a fresh install? Should I just backup my home & etc dir's and try to put it all back together a bit at a time? For the most part I would like to have all the pkg's re installed as well as my themes, icons, menu's, etc, etc... Is there a better way than bit by bit, or should I just accept the fact that I need to start from scratch? At this point nothing has been done to the new system, I wanted to hear any alternatives you guys might have to offer.

ewaller · 2011-08-08 02:03:08

Well, you can do a pacman -Q > SomeFile on your old system, then, on your new system,
do a sudo pacman -S $(cat SomeFile)

That will get you all of the official packages you have now

frabjous · 2011-08-08 02:06:33

ewaller wrote:

Well, you can do a pacman -Q > SomeFile on your old system, then, on your new system,
do a sudo pacman -S $(cat SomeFile)
That will get you all of the official packages you have now

Better make that pacman -Qq unless you want the version numbers screwing up the next step. Personally, though I'd do pacman -Qqt to get only those that are not dependencies or else you'll end up re-installing the same package multiple times if it had already been installed as a adependency. Consder even pacman -Qqet for only explicitly installed ones.

But also consider that a new install is high time to consider getting rid of some packages you don't use, and only install on a "when they're missed" basis. Reduces clutter.

mindhack · 2011-08-08 04:06:29

I always follow this simple guide to clone my arch setup:
http://yuanjie-huang.blogspot.com/2009/ … puter.html

Once I got the system set up, I use an ethernet wire to transfer the /home stuff.

Good luck

lolilolicon · 2011-08-08 04:59:28

If you don't really need a fresh install, just dd the system over (from a live CD) and do some adjustments later. mindhack's link is also OK I guess.

If, however, you do want a fresh install... (which feels really fresh and healthy, you know )
Most of your configs should be in $HOME and /etc, but I'm not sure if copying the entire /etc will break anything. You need some ajustments, at least.
For installed packages, follow ewaller and frabjous' suggestions.
As to themes, icons and the like, I always package them and install using pacman. I also do the same for custom font packages. I usually have all these custom packages archived, so I can simply install them using pacman if need be later. And even if I don't have the package, I can use bacman (from pacman-contrib) to re-package the installed packages, or simply rebuild them since I also have the build scripts / source archived.

Last edited by lolilolicon (2011-08-08 04:59:54)

zendeavor · 2011-08-10 17:33:40

use rsync

Arch Linux

#1 2011-08-08 00:46:40

Fresh Arch for my new laptop (It's giving me brain pain)

#2 2011-08-08 02:03:08

Re: Fresh Arch for my new laptop (It's giving me brain pain)

#3 2011-08-08 02:06:33

Re: Fresh Arch for my new laptop (It's giving me brain pain)

#4 2011-08-08 04:06:29

Re: Fresh Arch for my new laptop (It's giving me brain pain)

#5 2011-08-08 04:59:28

Re: Fresh Arch for my new laptop (It's giving me brain pain)

#6 2011-08-10 17:33:40

Re: Fresh Arch for my new laptop (It's giving me brain pain)

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