save list of all your settings and installed apps

[Tom_ZeCat]

You guys have helped me a ton, so now I'm going to help you with a tip. I find it useful to save all my settings and a list of all the apps I use in a CherryTree database. If an app does not install simply via the repository, I include info on how to install it (via PPA, debian package, manual install, etc.) You can get CherryTree from the repositories or, if you want the latest, there is a PPA available for it.

I had to wipe my hard drive because the upgrade from 14.04 LTS to 16.04 did not work. After the fresh install, I'm going down my list of Kubuntu settings and stuff to install. That way I can get the job done more quickly and I can make sure I didn't miss anything. I have my list of apps divided into "high priority," "medium priority," "low priority," and "basement priority." Here's a screen shot of my CherryTree file:

forum image hosting

Maybe this will help someone who doesn't do something like it already.

[dequire]

That's pretty cool, actually! I'm not familiar with CherryTree but I do keep a Google doc (that I started all the way back when Google Notes was still a thing) with step-by-step instructions for getting a new install just the way I want. I also keep an alternate version for when installing Kubuntu on a client's or friend's PC. I may check this out though as an alternative, as I'm moving away from Google piece by piece. Thanks for sharing.

[wizard10000]

Tellya how I do it - everybody does this differently but this has worked for me for years.

First, the only data I back up is /home, /etc and /root but I back them up religiously. I have a nightly cron job that rsyncs those directories to both an external drive on the host machine and another external drive on a remote machine.

Also as a nightly cron job I do this:

dpkg -- get-selections > /home/username/installed-programs.txt

which gives me a list of all the packages I have installed (and any I have removed from a default install).

Then after I reinstall I restore /home, /etc and /root, make sure that my apt sources are up to scratch and do this as root:

apt update
dpkg -- set-selections < /home/username/installed-programs.txt
apt-get dselect-upgrade

There. All done. Bare metal to fully restored system takes me about an hour.

Hope this gives folks some ideas -

[Tom_ZeCat]

Tellya how I do it - everybody does this differently but this has worked for me for years.

First, the only data I back up is /home, /etc and /root but I back them up religiously. I have a nightly cron job that rsyncs those directories to both an external drive on the host machine and another external drive on a remote machine.

Also as a nightly cron job I do this:

dpkg -- get-selections > /home/username/installed-programs.txt

which gives me a list of all the packages I have installed (and any I have removed from a default install).

Then after I reinstall I restore /home, /etc and /root, make sure that my apt sources are up to scratch and do this as root:

apt update
dpkg -- set-selections < /home/username/installed-programs.txt
apt-get dselect-upgrade

There. All done. Bare metal to fully restored system takes me about an hour.

Hope this gives folks some ideas -

That's really nifty. Thanks.