On 10/30/22 7:42 AM, Spencer Collyer wrote:
I am looking to replace my current desktop PC, which is getting on for
8 years old now, with a more up-to-date one. Ideally I want the new one
to be set up the same as my current one, which has been running on Arch
since I first got it.
What is the best way to set up the new one to mirror the existing one?
I'd like to have all the same packages installed, with basically the
same setup, except for obvious points like the new PC having a
different IP address and name on my network.
My initial idea was something like the following:
1) Install a basic Arch system on the new computer
2) Get the list of installed packages from the old computer (I think
there is a way to do this using Pacman?)
3) Somehow get Pacman to
install the same list of packages on the new computer.
4) Tidy up any
config files that need changing - e.g. for the aforementioned IP
address / computer name stuff.
5) Copy over my /home directory 6) Copy
over various data directories/partitions I have -e.g. I have a whole
bunch of images stored in a separate partition that I'll want to copy
over. The stuff in here is all self-contained so should be easy enough
to copy over.
Why do you even need to a fresh Arch install on the new computer? If it
were me, I would just:
a) copy the entire contents of the drive from the old machine to the new one
b) boot the new machine into single user mode
c) perform "mkinitcpio -P" on the new machine (to rebuild your kernel
image with any modules that the new machine's hardware needs)
And you're done.
I've done this several times before when moving to a new machine. Any
reason this wouldn't work for you?
DR
