[lug] Personal 'layer'

[Sebastian Sobolewski (Spsobole)]

That's a cleaver idea.  What I have done in the past is partition my Linux 
boxes as:
/
/home
/opt -> /home/opt

When I reinstall/upgrade/etc I just have it leave my home directory alone and 
reformat and install  into /.  All my custom apps are in /opt so there is 
nothing more to do after the install.  

Though I have had to manually install some system updates which your solution 
solves.  It may be worth while to as you backup /home to also grab a listing 
of currently installed packages automatically so you can use that listing. ( 
I'd easily forget all the packages I installed over a years time )

-Sebastian



On Sunday 03 August 2008 09:54:10 Scott Rohling wrote:
> I've been de/re/installing Linux on several machines lately here at home
> and decided I needed a good way to make it easy to get all my apps back,
> settings, etc.
>
> The obvious thing to do is have a backup of /home that you restore - that
> gets your data and settings back, but doesn't ensure the apps that use that
> data will be available.  I decided to just create a simple script in my
> /home that I can use to install the packages I use ..  for example:
>
> install-mypackages:    (This is on Ubuntu 8.04)
>
> #!/bin/bash
> sudo apt-get install amarok xpdf x3270 prism k9copy vlc
> ubuntu-restricted-extras
>
> I came up with the above list by installing Ubuntu - and then keeping track
> of what packages I knew for sure I wanted..  I just kept adding on to the
> script as I thought of things until I was done.
>
> So now I just install the system (or restore from some pristine backup) -
> restore /home - and run install-mypackages..
>
> A more elegant solution is probably to have make a .deb file (or .rpm for
> RH/SUSE/etc) which 'requires' the packages I want to install and then just
> install  that.
>
> Some of my apps aren't part of the repository (or I prefer to get them from
> the source) and I have .deb files for them in my /home.  So thus another
> script:
>
> install-mydebs:
>
> #!/bin/bash
> sudo dpkg -i -R ~/debinstall/*
>
> my debinstall directory:
>
> picasa_2.7.3736-15_i386.deb
> virtualbox_1.6.4-33808_Ubuntu_hardy_i386.deb
> skype-debian_2.0.0.72-1_i386.deb
>
> And I could also just do the dpkg in install-mydebs, but for now I'm
> keeping them separate.
>
> A more elegant solution is probably to have make a .deb file (or .rpm for
> RH/SUSE/etc) which 'requires' the packages I want to install as well as my
> local deb files and then just install  that.
>
> If I install programs that I know I want to have as part of my 'layer' - I
> just add it to the script(s) to make sure it's there next time I rebuild.
>
> Ok - so that's my 'easy' solution to creating a 'personal layer' to add
> onto a new or rebuilt distro --   what do other people do?
>
> Thanks for sharing -   Scott