linux4noobs

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How to install a default collection of tools when upgrading / reinstalling (feddit.org)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/linux4noobs

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I'm getting ready to switch but there are a few things that I could not figure out how to do optimally. Here's one of those, maybe you can help me with that:

For the past 30 years on Windows when I found a new application I wanted to use I put it in D:\Tools. Almost all applications don't actually need to be installed even if they are only distributed in an installer. That meant that to move my tool collection to a new computer I pull out the D-Drive, mount it in the new computer as D and I'm instantly ready to go.

On Linux there are 2 scenarios flatpak or traditional Package Manager distributions.

For flatpaks putting them on a specific drive seems easy enough.

But how do I handle applications that are not (yet?) available as a flatpak? I tried Nix but decided I'm not ready for that. I could put everything in a bash script but that seems clumsy and would be work to maintain. Is there any other clever way to avoid manually installing my defaults when I updgrade / reinstall my OS?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I tried out a tool that helped you do that, but i can't remember the name. Maybe it rings a bell to someone ?

Basically it was a dotfile manager (which you use to save your config files and deploy them on a new install), which also recorded which packages were installed on your system. It would output a bunch of bash scripts which you could customize and save on a git repo. Running those bash scripts would install all the mentioned packages with the configs you have saved. It may have been Arch only, i can't remember.

There's a bunch of dotfile managers listed on this page, such as chezmoi and yadm, but i'm not sure if one of them handles packages as well.

Realistically the list of tools you really need to reinstall on a new system shouldn't be very long. Personally i just reinstall a bare system and install tools if and when i need them. The advantage is that you don't carry over bloat from one system to the other. Do you think it would be applicable to your use case ?