Hey,
new to Manjaro and already love it. I installed it on my Desktop PC and it works flawlessly.
But often I switch from the Desktop PC to my Laptop and it would be awesome when they are in Sync somehow (Settings, installed Software …). I already red that this isnt so easy.
If this doesnt work, it would also be nice to make a snapshot of my current system and install it on my laptop. I had MX Linux before and there was such a Snapshot function.
Would be nice if someone push me in the right direction. Thanks a lot!
You cannot have any proprietary drivers on any machine
You need to be an expert at both BIOS and UEFI
You need to have a GPT partition with MBR compatibility enabled
You need to choose a DE that’s very light-weight
One machine should be considered the “Parent” and any and all configuration changes need to be done on that one and the “Child” gets configuration updates through cloning only…
etc etc
I have a USB stick like that that boots on most machines and that I only use to disinfect / recover passwords from Windoze machines or if push comes to shove, to work on a computer in an Internet café but every now and then, I still run into machines that don’t connect to the WiFi, whose touchpads don’t work, … so:
try again in a few years / months after you’ve installed Linux on at least 10 machines and you’ve read up on a ton of documentation…
Alternatively, install any software immediately on both machines and/or keep your documents synchronised on a NAS / SAN.
How is configure your usb stick to boot on most machines?
I have an usb stick with a Manjaro installed, no problem, but I never boot on a machine with the disc from the machine, I unplug the disc, and then I boot with the usb stick, I don’t want to delete something on boot with the usb stick.
My usb stick grub is looking so
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
insmod part_gpt
insmod part_msdos
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
load_env
fi
if [ "${next_entry}" ] ; then
set default="${next_entry}"
set next_entry=
save_env next_entry
set boot_once=true
else
Okay Wow, thanks all for the answers. I am not a complete newbie to Linux, but no expert at all. I red some articles about the stuff you posted and I understand the most of it. The Problem is, its to complicated to do it on regular basis.
My Documents and Files are not the Problem, they are in my own Nextcloud.
Its not like you need to copy the whole disk, what I mostly need is copy the settings of XFCE (shortcuts and co) and the installed software - a list of it - so pacman can install it on the other pc.
Something like the Settings Sync in VSCode.
Almost sounds to me what you want are your dotfiles.
Dotfiles are used to customize your system. The “dotfiles” name is derived from the configuration files in Unix-like systems that start with a dot (e.g. . bash_profile and . gitconfig). For normal users, this indicates these are not regular documents, and by default are hidden in directory listings.
More specifically, but not limited to ~/.config/. Also /etc/. Those are the two most important directories for configuration stuff according to me.
But you will not be able to clone that unless the machines are completely identical!
(I.E. the model number of the 2 computers are identical, so a laptop and a desktop: NO GO unless you go completely generic on both machines!)
Given all the (correct!) observations about hardware incompatibilities, perhaps a middle course would be best. You could install Manjaro and your usual apps on the laptop from scratch, then copy your entire home directory as a tar file to the laptop. Or perhaps, move your home directory for both onto an external USB drive. In the latter case, at least your home directory always will be in sync on both.
If your laptop and desktop use different sorts of processors (x86_64 vs aarch64, for example), even this modest proposal may cause headaches and not be worth pursuing.
)
