I have a simple wish, with a probably not so simple solution.
I recently started with linux (Arch kde), I’m loving it, I quickly realized that this OS and almost all apps, are highly customizable, I’m laving that as well. My problem is the unavoidable reinstalls and that I have a laptop.
Is there any way that I can save all my configs, apps and my apps’ configs, and transfer them over to my laptop, while almost having a very quick back-up. I realize that I could turn it into an ISO somehow, but that wouldn’t work (I think) because my laptop has vastly different hardware. I also realize the partitioning problem. So in my idealistic world, there should be a solution that requires a clean install (from scripts or manual) and some .sh file, that installs all my apps, pastes all my configs and reboots.
So is this possible? and if yes, how should I go about this? did someone make a tool for this already? Or(!) can I burn it to a flash and the drivers will correct themselves/I’ll deal with them later?
For final words I’d like to say that I’m far from finished configurating, but I’d like to know the proccess, to not shoot myself in the foot somewhere along the way of configing, thanks!
It’s really hard to [accidentally] permanently break Linux to the point of requiring a reinstall.
Here’s a really good tip: Keep a live distro (I use Mint) on a USB drive. If something real bad happens, you can boot into the live distro, and chroot into your OS and do the repairs you need. While also having a live distro with web access and a browser to help.
I broke my GRUB once (or twice) and fixed it again this way.
Keep a backup of your /boot folder, GRUB (or equivalent) configs, etc, also check documentation on Arch wiki for boot process. 99.9% of the time you should be able to fix things to at least get to a TTY after boot.
That takes stress off of my back. But does not solve the problem, that I’d like an identically configured portable system (my laptop). :/
I do have live USBs laying around, thanks for the tip.