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!
Seconding this. Store your configuration.nix in git and just copy it back over if you ever need to wipe and reinstall.
Git.
Keep all the config files of your tools in subdirectories of a git versioned directory and symlink them into their target location (e.g. with GNU stow). If installation of a tool is involved and you expect to have to revisit it, put the steps into an installation bash script and version it as well.
@zacher_glachl @perishthethought I take a similar approach starting with a bare work-tree at
$HOME/.cfgand add config files I’ve changed. Then throw my--git-dirand--work-treeswitches in an alias for git.As for installed programs, a simple backup of my portage world file takes car of that.
+1, essential ones I keep in GitHub repository (like zsh, tmux, xdefaults configs with no personal data). With makefile that makes symlinks. This is the easiest way to sync zsh config between my personal and work machines.
Rest is just in a backup.
Do you have an example of a generalise makefile that does that? Or does it need to be customise per configuration?
On my GitHub repo. Needs to be customized, but you should get the idea.
Maybe there is a way to write it better, I’m no makefile expert ;)
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.
Home Manager on a NixOS flake, it’s a rabbit hole but I’ve been loving it since last week!
Install fresh copy of Linux OS on a new device. Install the apps I know I need like browser, code editor, etc.
Use device.
Realize “oh crap I forgot to install X!”
Install X
Repeat until all X have been installed.
Plus backup
/homeand/etc, maybe/optas well.Lol, pretty much what I’ve done in the past. And yep, it works, eventually.
Use ansible and variable, so it can be replicated to other computer. Simple
ansible.builtin.apt: name: "{{ item }}" state: latest loop: - pkg1 - pkg2At work we are starting to transition to Ansible from chef and other homegrown solutions. So to learn Ansible I added awx to my home lab and now have playbooks for almost all of my devices. Going to format a Pi again soon and see if everything works as intended
Home manager on NixOS and stored all config files in a Git repo
I just check my Nix.config, but most distros don’t have that privilege.
Idk how it works for most other distros, but I know on Arch you can check all packages manually installed by pacman and your AUR helper.
Iirc
pacman -Qedoes something like this
Move all your heavily modified config files into a git repository and host it somewhere. Then symlink all your config files to where they should be with
ln -s ~/.config/whatever ~/gitrepo/whatever. That’s how you preserve your important configs.You can easily get a list of your installed packages (which you can keep in your repository) with
apt list --installed > packages.txt. You can then format that list to one you can install from withsed -e "s-/.*$--" <packages.txt(or something, i don’t have apt, can’t test it fully).In fact, if someone here is more familiar with apt, please find a way to filter out packages that were not explicitly installed and reply to this comment with your solution.
This combined with
stowcommand makes it very simple to “install” your system configuration on a new machine.
NixOS stores a snapshot of your OS and all the app configs in an OS config folder for you. Helpful for instant system recovery or deploying the setup to new hardware.
git repo
A bash script
apt get install <your list here>
Same with flatpak
Keep updated. Done.
https://github.com/koepnick/dotfiles cloned into ~/.config
I typically start with a restrictive .gitignore and add directories as needed.
A ton of stuff that I always forget like mpv, vifm, and whatnot always slipped through the cracks before. Now I can clone to practically anywhere and have everything just work.
I keep a changelog for all my computers and note installations, uninstallations and config changes.
Lately using Silverblue. Everything is a flatpak or is layered. Both are easy to list.
Maybe a handful of things in distrobox I need to keep track of.
If you use other package managers like
flatpak,nix-env(for non-NixOS),npm(for global stuff), … you can just create a bash script to list all installed packages for each manager, and save to a file(s). I put them in a git repo to version control these lists, which are updated every now and then when I update stuff.
