Earlier this year, I built a new PC and it’s running Ubuntu. I’ve been installing various apps and configuring them since then. Now, I realize I don’t have any way of knowing what I would want to reinstall, if I (for instance) lost this drive somehow.

How do you keep track of what you’ve installed/ your favorite apps?

Separately, how can I backup the configurations I’m using right now.

Thanks!

  • @[email protected]English
    18•1 year ago

    Oh! I can participate!

    Everything I have/configure is 100% in Ansible. I learned the hard way that rebuilding a workstation from scratch sucks if I only depend on my brain to remember things.

    It takes some effort to keep it updated - if I’m trying out a new app, I have to remember to add it to my config.

    The other thing that I’ve started doing is using Restic for file level backups. That’s relatively easy to set up, it supports a multitude of backend storage, and works well with a cron job for braindead backups.