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!

  • Tyler K. Nothing
    4•1 year ago

    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?

    I think this is where a few respondents got the impression you are looking at this like a Windows install. It is not. All of the drivers, minus proprietary (also called non-free) drivers (i.e., Nvidia, file format support, etc), are already included in the installation. On laptops, this can get weird with some of the laptop-specific hardware, but most of it works out of the box most of the time. Exceptions are old WinTel-era wireless and networking cards which needed a terrible driver wrapper, but has long since fallen out of favor. Thankfully!

      • Tyler K. Nothing
        2•1 year ago

        ~/boot is at the root of the drive. Your home folder should be in ~/home/username. THAT you can copy wholesale. I believe. Don’t take my word for it. Deja Dup can do it for you, as well, or the entire system.

        • @[email protected]
          5•1 year ago

          Bit of pedantry, but ~/boot expands to something like /home/username/boot.

          /boot is a folder at the root of your filesystem, while ~/boot is a directory in your home folder.

          • Tyler K. Nothing
            2•1 year ago

            Oh yes! Thanks for reminding me. The ~ is a shortcut to the active users home folder? Thanks!

          • Tyler K. Nothing
            2•1 year ago

            If you don’t encrypt the drive, yes. Some things you will have to reauthenticate, however, like your online accounts, but when those are reconnected everything should work as intended. That you should confirm, however. I don’t encrypt, though I should ;)

            • @[email protected]OP
              2•1 year ago

              I don’t even know how-to, or what it truly means to encrypt, so I don’t have to worry about that. And I just love hearing the other parts. Thanks