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[Discuss] Backing up the entire software installation
- Subject: [Discuss] Backing up the entire software installation
- From: greg at freephile.com (Greg Rundlett (freephile))
- Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2018 13:59:01 -0400
- In-reply-to: <20181025171200.GD22674@bladeshadow.org>
- References: <CAPnB49Fca+-AdFDF0WHz6Mo5Qght98e9JJ17m-iYz-A4P1XL1A@mail.gmail.com> <20181025171200.GD22674@bladeshadow.org>
I cover some of this in the "Cloning" article at: https://wiki.freephile.org/wiki/Cloning (Feel free to copy, re-use, expand, edit the content using the new blu wiki <https://blu.qualitybox.us> if anyone is so inclined) On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 1:12 PM Derek Martin <invalid at pizzashack.org> wrote: > On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 08:53:01PM -0400, Nancy Allison wrote: > > I have Fedora 28 and lots of programs installed. I use a backup for my > > files, but I dread the day I have to start with a new computer and > > reinstall all my programs. > > > > Is it possible to create a copy of everything, my Fedora 28 operating > > system, all the programs, all the nifty Firefox plug-ins, all my > Favorites > > -- everything? So if this hard drive died and I needed to get a new > laptop, > > I could copy over the entire contents of this computer without having to > > recreate it? > > I don't sysadmin professionally anymore, but when I did, I also > preferred the same solutiion as Rich: Don't back up OS and software, > do a fresh install. And I still prefer that. It's usually faster and > easier, and it also gives you a nice opportunity to update to more > recent versions of things, if you haven't been keeping up with > updates, or even update to a newer OS. > > Your package manager can list all of the packages you have installed. > Do that, and save the output to a file somewhere, obviously at least > making one copy that's not stored on the machine itself. > > Note that when you're doing a recovery, if you install substantially > newer versions of things, be sure to restore your home directory > BEFORE logging in as your own user. This way, most things can detect > that the configs are from a previous version and update them, > minimuzing issues related to upgrades. > > > If I can't do that, how can I at least generate some kind of list of > > everything I have installed so I don't have to rack my brains trying to > > remember everything I had on this box? > > If you made a lot of custom edits to configuration files (like > DNS, mailer agent config files, etc.) it's a good idea to keep those > under some kind of source revision control system, and back up the > repository. You could of course also just copy them off periodically. > For your home directory, which should contain your configurations for > the applications you use as well as your own data, you can just use > tar, cpio, or some similar archive program to make a back-up of your > home directory. > > One issue to be aware of is that some desktop environments, like > Gnome, may store paths containing your username or hostname, so when > you reinstall, if you change your hostname or username you may have > problems with the DTE finding things. You can of course fix them > manually... but it's better to just use the same names. > > > -- > Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 > -=-=-=-=- > This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will > result in > undeliverable mail due to spam prevention. Sorry for the inconvenience. > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at blu.org > http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >
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- [Discuss] Backing up the entire software installation
- From: nancythewriter7 at gmail.com (Nancy Allison)
- [Discuss] Backing up the entire software installation
- From: invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)
- [Discuss] Backing up the entire software installation
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