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Migration Plan plus Identifying Missing Packages

I'm working on Artix using a spare system. The plan is to build it as time is available, then, if I decide to make it my main system, move the SSD into the main system, fix up fstab and users/groups, and it should be all good. (I'm far enough along that I'm pretty sure I'm going to stick with Artix.)

The main system has /home on its own partition, plus additional drives / partitions for things such as music and video, an archive area for old stuff I think I might want to reference ( things in /etc, Apache configs, dusty remnants of systems gone by...), and likely other things I've forgotten about.

The only thing I can think of as maybe breaking would be newer versions of software barfing on old versions of config files and possibly things in ~/.cache, but I can solve that, I think, by deleting those files if needed.

The other part of the plan is identifying packages from the Ubuntu system which I want to install. I thought I had a plan for that, but it turned out to be wrong. I have a list of installed packages. I figured I could automate filtering this using commands adapted from the Arch wiki Pacman Tips and Tricks, section 2.18.

installed_packages.txt is the list of stuff on my Ubuntu system, pruned somewhat using grep to remove libraries.
Code: [Select]
export LC_COLLATE='C'
pacman -Qq | sort > artix_in.txt
comm -13 artix_in.txt installed_packages.txt | sort > not_installed.txt
cat not_installed.txt | xargs -n 1 pamac search -arq | sort > available.txt
comm -23 not_installed.txt available.txt

That resulted in a huge list of packages in available.txt (around 14,000 lines). Possibly, I'm mis-using the comm command, which wouldn't surprise me. (I sometimes get things flipped around. If I were to stick this stuff in a relational database, the SQL for a list as input to pamac search would be super easy for me - though the end result might still be unmanageable.)

Any comments on things I should watch out for?

Any ideas on automating a list of missing things? (Obviously, stuff like dpkg won't be there.) The end result should be a usable list of packages I can install from the repos/AUR, and list of packages that aren't available. installed_packages.txt is 1520 lines. I can try writing a quickie Perl script, for example. It'd be nice if there were something already available that'd work.

Re: Migration Plan plus Identifying Missing Packages

Reply #1 –
Debian based distros split packages into sub packages to a far greater extent than Arch based ones, so you can't make a direct comparison. There will be lots of packages that don't exist in Artix because they are included in others. I'd suggest making a list of your main apps, as would appear in the desktop menus or that you use on the commandline, then installing those, and let pacman take care of the dependencies. In fact you probably don't want to install dependencies individually because it will complicate future package management if you later want to remove something and all it's dependencies with pacman -Rs. Also there are some package groups for desktops, package building and other stuff, some of which you can see suggested on the Artix wiki:
https://wiki.artixlinux.org/Main/Installation#Install_base_system
Those will make putting together a basic system much easier, then you install your own personal choices afterwards. Check the wiki for details of enabling alternate repos and using the AUR if anything is missing from the main repos.

Re: Migration Plan plus Identifying Missing Packages

Reply #2 –
I'll look into the groups.

I don't plan on trying to automate the installation part, just hoping to trim the list down to something manageable. I have a lot of stuff, and don't always remember it, because some things I use quite infrequently. If I can avoid future surprises, that'll be a good thing, and maybe I'll just have to tackle it in small pieces.

Re: Migration Plan plus Identifying Missing Packages

Reply #3 –
So long as you have regular internet access and decent connection speeds, it doesn't take long to install something if you find you need it, probably just seconds. In fact I often remove larger packages I rarely use when I'm done for that instance, because it saves them wasting drive space and also being repeatedly updated while unused. You don't have to install everything you could possibly ever need, and it can be more efficient to purposefully not do that. Of course that's just my approach, feel free to manage your system how you desire!  :D  Pacman, and AUR helpers should you need them, do make it very quick and easy to install and uninstall things when you become familiar with the procedure, so it might be scarcely worth spending hours to save seconds later. Debian package managers are noticeably slow in operation by comparison.

Re: Migration Plan plus Identifying Missing Packages

Reply #4 –
Quote from: ####### – on
Debian package managers are noticeably slow in operation by comparison.

Yeah, I've noticed that package installs go much more quickly.  :)

The perfect is the enemy of the good. I have to remind myself of that. But there's a comfort level I have to reach before making the jump.