Method to save your favorite Linux apps for reinstall
20+ years ago, Lindows had a great app store that let you create an "aisle" of your favorite apps so if/when you'd reinstall your OS, instead of searching and installing all your apps one-by-one, you'd just go to your aisle, click "install all" and boom.
Is there anything that exists like that today?
For Arch you run pacman -Qe which lists all installed packages that were not installed as a dependency.
I output that to a location via golang script which is monitored by the pCloud client for automatic backup along with a lot of other configs from $HOME/.config.
I then have a systemd service that fires the script and a timer to kick off that service periodically.
This is the way.
On a related note, would you recommend restoring an entire home directory (including the dot files and all the dot directories) once I reinstall all the packages after a fresh install? Would it basically replicate my restored setup or would there be random issues that emerge? I'm thinking particular system settings related to kde/gnome settings, but others I might not be aware of.
For me, I tend to focus on specific directories I know I'd need data from (or that will just be a hassle to rewrite config for). I have a scripts folder that gets backed up, Books, .mozilla, etc. A lot of things I just know I won't need like .cache. That folder is 7GB and mostly just the cache from yay needing to be cleared out.
I don't backup my entire home directory because I'm worried ACLs may change or other little issues that will take more time than its worth to correct. That said, you could. You worried about something like that, you could pull the existing ACLs: find ~/ -type f -exec getfacl --absolute-names {} + > home_acls_backup.txt and then restore them: setfacl --restore=home_acls_backup.txt
I haven't really used KDE much, but I know it has a theme data in .local/share that you'd want (and probably the .cache folder as well). GNOME keeps theme data in .themes, .icons, .fonts. They might just be defaults, but if you have anything custom, you'd want those folders too.
For me that's the main benefit of using home-manager on nixos and other distros. You basically just make a list of packages, and install/update them through home-manager.
I mean, i feel obvious for saying this, but maybe others dont know: If we're just talking about apps, this is also a 1-liner in most package managers that you can even automate in a shell script
sudo apt-get install firefox vlc thunderbird etc...
if we're talking more complex environments like a dev environment, mix of python packages, libraries, docker containers, etc obviously thats a lot of attention to manually save all of those details for later and something else should probably be used
Sure, but then you need to maintain it. I don't know about you, but I never had the discipline to update it with every package install and uninstall. It's especially annoying when you have multiple devices.
Declarative package management doesn't have that issue since you're managing the packages by editing the list.
Besides that, the home-manager approach works on any distro (and os?), you get bleeding edge packages, you get a built in rollback system, and you can handle configs as well (but I mainly just symlink them anyways).
I guess most people would not only want to easily reinstall all their apps, but also the settings related to them.
Sadly that’s the difficult part.
When I see how much time it takes me to have all my calendar and settings in Thunderbird.
Luckily for Thunderbird you can save your profile if everything takes less than 2gb, but it’s still a hassle to find a way to backup every program.
How long does it take to get home-manager set up?
It's pretty fast, especially if you don't get into flakes right away. You basically just install nix with a one liner -> install home-manager through nix -> start adding packages to list.
Here's a comment I made when I was starting out with basic instructions. Do note I'm now using this command for updates instead (updates hm, package definitions, and the packages themselves)
cd ~/dotfiles/nix/ && nix flake update && nix-channel --update && home-manager switch --flake ~/dotfiles/nix/
If you can't remember what to reinstall, was it really that important? Packages are so quick and easy to install that I just install them the first time I try to use them and find them missing.
I think you are right when it comes to re-installation of the packages themselves. What's more annoying for me is re-applying all of the little tweaks and configurations for all of the ones that I actually do want or need.
Same.
Surprised nobody said this yet, but I use ansible. I also use it to have the same install on multiple machines independently (something that doesn't work by just having a dedicated home partition).
But it's a bit of maintenance to keep modifying my dotfiles, certainly not as easy as your old apps aisle.
use your distros method of listing every installed package and modify it to be a install command
instead of searching and installing all your apps one-by-one
And... that takes what, a good all 5 minutes?
Honestly unless you either re-install an OS frequently (which is a weird thing to do on a day-to-day system) or plan to go offline for a long period of time I bet you'd spend more time finding a "solution" then not doing so manually.
I'm not you but when I install a fresh OS (maybe once every couple of years, at most!) on my desktop (not counting other devices, handheld, servers, etc) I install
...well honestly that's it!
Then yes as I start to work I add KDEnlive, OBS, Blender, Cura, OpenSCAD, etc.
My point being that I can't imagine a moment when, as you start the OS you actually need all the other software at the same time. You usually need one, then another, e.g. Inkscape to edit a PDF document you just received, then you pass the extract image to e.g. LibreOffice Writer.
So... not having everything from the start is IMHO a good moment to consider what you actually need, keep things lean.
TL;DR: there are technical solutions but on a desktop connected to the Internet it's not worth it.
PS: I do personally keep my bash history or my ~/bin/ and ~/Apps/~ directories across installations (because I do keep ~` on a dedicated partition) with some AppImages in but honestly I don't rely on these.
I think a sync method or a way to dump settings and apps would be cool.
I'd argue ~ on a dedicated partition pretty much does that already.
Just use appimages. Works for a lot of things that don't require full integration.
Assuming you are using an apt/dpkg distro:
Save the list of packages on your reference system:
dpkg --get-selections > packages.lst
Then install packages based on that list on your target system, after updating the list of available packages:
dpkg --merge-avail <(apt-cache dumpavail)
dpkg --clear-selections
dpkg --set-selections < packages.lst
apt-get dselect-upgrade
In APK based systems (Alpine, Chimera, Adelie) there is /etc/apk/world
It is a list of all the packages you have explicitly installed. When you add and remove from this list (all apk does), the system solves for dependencies and makes sure you have the right packages installed.
You could bring up a new system by updating this file.
I'm not advocating for anything, but if I remember correctly, flatpaks are typically installed in user home directory. If that's the case, then it's just a matter of copying a directory and installing flatpak. I might be wrong though.
I think that's true, but permissions might come into play and really cause pain; it's probably best to just reinstall.
You can install all apps through the command line. Just write a shellscript with all the commands and run it when you're doing your reinstall.
And just update it with every package install and uninstall, on every device, forever.
dpkg --get-selections > package_list.txtOr just generate a list before you reinstall. Other distros have similar commands.
Is there a nice way to check if something is already installed or do you just install it again and that just skips already installed stuff?
It skips already installed stuff.