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Transfereing existing packages from one computer to another


ichase

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I know this has been answered before and I actually thought I bookmarked the thread but apparantly not. I am ONCE AGAIN bringing the old FrankenstIAN back to life, but this time with an updated MOBO, video card that will allow 3 monitors vice the 2 I had up and running on it, 2 x 1 TB sata hard drives (Thanks Security Breach for the recent link you provided on the ones you use...They were on Sale :thumbup: ) Still waiting on some memory to bring it to 16gb (currently I have 2 GB but it will be enough to get Arch up and running)

So the questions is, which I aplogize again because I know this topic has been covered; how can I transfer or request all the packages currently running on my laptop to the desktop now that it will be able to handle it. Eventually FrankenstIAN is going to become my main rig and the laptop my secondary when I am on the road.

 

As always, I thank everyone for their assistance and guidance,

 

All the best,

 

Ian

 

FrankenstIAN back in the day :) d4f57f162858609.jpg

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If you want to experiment a bit, you could try just copying the entire contents of your source partition to the destination part on the 2nd computer. They must both have the same type format (e.g.. ext4) and ideally should be on a partition with the same name (e.g., /dev/sda3 => /dev/sda3). It can be bigger than the source part. Boot the copy with a grub cd (for example).

 

I've made that work here multiple times. Might not be necessary to have the same partition name on the destination. I know that Slack and Mint don't care about that, can be copied freely. The times I have tried it with PCLinuxOS it didn't work.

 

Otherwise, I'd do a fresh install. I wouldn't know how to extract packages in a useful manner. Re-installing them would often require some script action, wouldn't it?

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Josh, burninbsush,

Thank you for your time. I plan on doing a fresh install of Arch with the latest Arch ISO which I put on disk yesterday. Utilizing the link Josh provided, I created a local and official .txt file for both the local and official packages currently installed on the laptop. I also put a copy of /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ on an external drive. This will come in handy for packages that are older that I have ignored such as wireless tools. (the most recent updated package to wireless tools causes conflicts with Conky and you all know for me that is NOT good :D ) I have copied over numerous other config files as well. I know it saves space, but I never used pacman -Sc because I like the piece of mind knowing I have an older copy of a package should I need it. (Though to save space on the local hard drive, I should just back that folder up to external (currently it's 17 GB) on occasion and actually run pacman -Sc.....Note to self ;) ) Bottom line is, I thoroughly love the way I have this laptop set up and still plan on using it, but the tides of change are upon me and it looks as if I will be seriously downgrading soon moving into my own small apartment so I would be able to easily use the desktop with multiple monitors with no issue. :)

I finished re-building FrankenstIAN yesterday (hardware wise) sans the updated memory and the 2nd 1TB HDD which is at work. With 2 TB of storage along with a 1.5 TB external I have had for years and never used (still in the box with celaphane wrap) I think 3.5 TB of space should be good for a while. ;) Not to mention the server still has about 250 GB left of space. The external will be used for clones should I need them and YES, I definitely need them from time to time when I jack things up. :hysterical: I do miss having the multiple monitor setup. ;)

More to follow as this project moves forward. Will need to look back at my old post to go through the set up procedures for setting up multiple monitors. I know I have Josh here who is a PRO at that. ;) I installed an upgraded Nvidia video card with 3 slots for video, one being HDMI. The internal chipset is also Nvidia ( NVIDIA GeForce 6100/nForce 430 ) so hopeing the same driver will work for both the on board video as well as the expansion video card. Should be fun getting this to where I want it but I also know me, it will NEVER be "exactly" the way I want it. :hysterical: Thanks again for your help and guidance.

 

Ian

Edited by ichase
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