What Steps to Take to migrate an install?

[pgmer6809]

So I've been running Mint 20.x for years now and I figured it was time to do a fresh install of Mint 21.x (Vanessa to start with) to get rid of some of the cruft.
But now I have to migrate all the various things Ive gotten used to over the years to the new system.
Everything from Samba config files to aliases, printers, Browser Shortcuts and bookmarks, not to mention software packages.
I am wondering if anyone has a checklist of things to do, or better yet a script to automate a lot of this.
How do most people do it?
pgmer6809

[AZgl1800]

I had been using 20.3 Cinnamon since it was released.
my laptop is highly customized, and I did NOT want to repeat the Ordeal to make it "mine again".

So, I chose the Upgrade Path as posted by Clem.
https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4378


here is a more detailed version by FOSS

https://itsfoss.com/upgrade-linux-mint-version/

[Petermint]

not to mention software packages

The upgrade path works except for some tricky stuff. If you installed software packages from PPAs or other weird sources, the upgrade will not know what to do with them. You can uninstall just the weird stuff, upgrade, then reinstall.

In my case, the weird stuff from PPAs was to get a current version and I did not need that with the newer release of LM. I also uninstalled some applications and used the Appimage versions to get the latest.

[AZgl1800]

not to mention software packages

The upgrade path works except for some tricky stuff. If you installed software packages from PPAs or other weird sources, the upgrade will not know what to do with them. You can uninstall just the weird stuff, upgrade, then reinstall.

In my case, the weird stuff from PPAs was to get a current version and I did not need that with the newer release of LM. I also uninstalled some applications and used the Appimage versions to get the latest.

In my case,
I just ignored what did NOT make it over, until I wanted that particular application again.
I always keep the install files in /Downloads/folder_name; so it is very easy to reinstall it again.
..... or ... get a newer version that works

[AndyMH]

Having a separate home partition is a good starting point.

[rickNS]

Everything from Samba config files to aliases, printers, Browser Shortcuts and bookmarks, not to mention software packages.
I am wondering if anyone has a checklist of things to do, or better yet a script to automate a lot of this.
How do most people do it?
pgmer6809

Yes I do have a check list, it's not very long, and is not that big a job really.
For me personally it is;
.bash_history
.config/GIMP
.local/share/gnote
.mame
.mozilla
.thunderbird
and
compiz+bkup_xxx.profile

For you, show hidden files in file manager on old system;

For samba, (don't use it, but) they say it's config file is in /etc/samba/smb.conf
For aliases, .bashrc or .bash_aliases (if you made that file)
For browser bookmarks .mozilla
Most other programs' configs will be in either .config, or .local/share

Do not know about printers, they have always been (for me) plug, and play, no configging required.

In addition for some system setting that you may have changed you can do from your old system a,
dconf dump / > ~/dconf-bkup
and load in your new system,
dconf load / < ~/dconf-bkup

[pgmer6809]

Thanks.
That dconf stuff looks useful. had not heard of that before.
One problem I have is that I have a lot of old stuff.
Samba for example:
I need the old NetBeui (or whatever they are called) protocols in samba which are now prevented by default due to security concerns.
But for my home network I dont care about that -- I take other measures for security ; Firewalls in the router and all Windows machines etc.

Checklist also looks useful; thanks.

pgmer6809
PS Usually I take the upgrade path; but sometime in Mint 18 I started getting notifications in Finnish regarding Firefox and some other software packages.
This has survived upgrades from 18->19->20->20.3 and I am tired of it.
There is of course other 'cruft' such as apps that are now obsolete or unsupported.
Hence the clean install.

[AZgl1800]

So I've been running Mint 20.x for years now and I figured it was time to do a fresh install of Mint 21.x (Vanessa to start with) to get rid of some of the cruft.
But now I have to migrate all the various things Ive gotten used to over the years to the new system.
Everything from Samba config files to aliases, printers, Browser Shortcuts and bookmarks, not to mention software packages.
I am wondering if anyone has a checklist of things to do, or better yet a script to automate a lot of this.
How do most people do it?
pgmer6809

buy the APTIK application, relatively cheap.
It will create a file of all of your Apps in use, PPAs, etc.

for the old stuff not supported in the New Repository, it will create a List at the bottom for you to Copy and Paste into a Document for future Reference.

that allows you to Manually install the things that you had before, and provide the Libraries that will be needed to support the old Apps.

https://teejeetech.com/aptik-3/


I Keep and Update APTIK's backup information from time to time.
the Updates are Incremental and can take as little as 15 seconds, depends on how much you have added, and how fast your CPU is and how big your RAM is.

the beauty of Aptik, is that you can duplicate your installs on additional PCs no matter what size HDD, SSD or RAM it might have.

It can, if you force it to, backup the /home stuff also, although that is probably better handled with Apps created just for that purpose....