Looking for a distribution that I could replicate from one computer to another - eviltoast

Hi everyone,

I’ve been a happy user of Fedora Workstation since Fedora 36 on my Surface Go 1.

I really enjoy Gnome and everything is set up the way I want to.

Since I was really happy with my setup I just wanted to be able to replicate it easily through Clonezilla so that I could port it on any future computer I’d get.

Sadly, even with the help of really helpful and knowledgeable users on Lemmy, it hasn’t worked (https://sh.itjust.works/post/25963065).

So now I’m left wondering if there could be a distribution that I’d enjoy and which would be easy to deploy on another computer as I’d hate to have to configure everything on every computer I’d get.

I love Gnome but I wouldn’t be against trying something else if necessary.

What distribution could meet my needs?

  • itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    251·
    1 month ago

    For reproducibility, nothing really beats NixOS. That’s not really what you’re asking for, as that would not involve Clonezilla.

    If you’re frequently switching hardware, and want to have everything up and running, configured to your liking, in minutes, you’re gonna have fun with NixOS in the long term. But I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, it has a steep learning curve and does require you to enjoy some tinkering. Worth it, imo

    Otherwise, just pick a distro that you enjoy and create a separate home partition, when it’s time to switch you do a fresh install and clone only the home partition. That’ll get you 90% of the way to have your old setup on the new device

    • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.worksOP
      51·
      1 month ago

      But what is a home partition?

      I mean for me the problem is backing up my settings (including for every app) and I don’t know where they are saved.

      Backing up my pictures, documents and others isn’t a problem.

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
        10·
        1 month ago

        Your settings for the most part are in your home directory, generally when you install a Linux system everything that isn’t the bootloader is on one partition (system, installed applications, etc)

        Your home directory is for anything specific to your user, meaning your downloads folder, your pictures, documents and also your .config folder which holds 90% of the config files

        There are some weird ones that have directories outside of home, afaik that’s stuff like network manager remembering your saved networks that runs outside of your user context