Hi, Linux! I’ve been using Linux for many years now, but haven’t moved distros in awhile. I’m considering it now, and I really would like to migrate over all my customized system and software settings. So far, I am thinking of backing up everything that begins with a dot in my home folder, all of my systemd service files, and user/root crontabs. I know this is missing some things, but I’m not sure what. Any advice/warnings/examples people care to share?

  • macniel@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    You could start by having /home on a different partition. So that you simply can mount it in your new system and have the same settings and files as previously.

    • electric_nan@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      This would be a big help, and I used to do that. I’ve actually heard that this can cause some problems between distros though.

      • mvee@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        My biggest problem with it is forgetting which system I booted into when I use the same desktop environments :P and yeah configs can get out of date and inconsistent but I usually just blow them away since I’m not into customizing my desktop much

      • donio@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        It shouldn’t as long as you make sure that the numeric uid/gid of your user account matches the one from the original system. If that’s not feasible then you can chown the tree.

        • electric_nan@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Hmm, this is actually something I will be fixing from the last time I repurposed this PC. What exactly do you mean chown the tree? I know what chown is, but what does tree mean in this context?