Hi, it’s my first message in this forum.
I know there are some other topics in the forum about this, but I wanted to create a new one because the other ones are kind of old already.
The thing is that I have a Manjaro KDE system, and I want to change it to EndeavourOS KDE without losing any configuration, specially KDE ones. So I have a couple of questions.
Is it enough to just copy the home folder?. If not, what else is needed?. I also want to keep the grub configurations, is that possible?. Do I have to keep something else in mind?.
How do I reinstall all packages automatically so I don’t have to go one by one? Also if possible skipping those packages that are not installed explicitly and the dependencies of those same packages, because some of them may be different in EndeavourOS. Basically I want to backup the programs that I installed manually.
The new system won’t have a Nvidia GPU, but the old one does, so what do I have to do in order to remove the drivers configurations?.
And I have also a question about EndeavourOS itself:
Do EndeavourOS has problems with multiple kernel versions? I mean, I like to have 2 or 3 older kernels apart from the one I usually use, and in Manjaro those old ones are shown in the grub menu and I can boot into them when I want, also Manjaro comes with a management tool to remove or install kernels and new ones are added to the grub menu. Do EndeavourOS has something like this?.
How does EndeavourOS work with multiple DEs? I like to have KDE and XFCE, will something break? In Manjaro everything works fine more or less.
No. You can install additional kernels, no problem. If you are running the Arch mainline kernel you can add other kernels to your liking, e.g. linux-lts (an older kernel), or linux-zen (a more hardened one).
KDE is based on QT, while Xfce is based on GTK. It is not very recommendable to install them both on one system, as some things may break, eventually. Another thing, QT and Xfce don’t mix well by visual design.
So it would be better, to decide for multiple DEs/WMs either based on QT or GTK. You can look them up in the ArchWiki.
You could create a list of installed packages on the Manjaro side and install all those packages on the EndeavourOS side.
On Manjaro:
pacman -Qq > manjaro.list
copy the file to your EndeavourOS box and install the packages:
On EndeavourOS
for p in $(cat manjaro.list); do
yay -S $p
done
This will of course fail for all Manjaro specific packages. I dont know which they are, but you propably want to identify them and remove them from manjaro.list
PS:
Instead of doing a for loop and installing one package at a time you could install the whole set at once:
However, keep in mind that some Manjaro packages might have a different name, or not be present in Arch repos. So I wouldn’t recommend this automated approach.
My advice would be a clean EndeavourOS install, and then just install packages when you need them.
I suggest you make a clean new installation of EndeavorOS. If your /home is a separate partition you can keep that during installation. Otherwise /home will be deleted and you need to have backup at hand to restore /home on your new EndeavourOS system.
I would advise against keeping the home directory. Manually copy files from a backup. And manually copy config files for each program individually (or just configure them from scratch as you use them in the following weeks).
Manjaro is a very bloated mess, you don’t need half of that rubbish on EndeavourOS, and this is a very nice opportunity to start fresh.
Well what I want to do is in fact a new installation of EndeavourOS in another PC, the thing is that I want to keep as many things as possible from Manjaro. I was thinking about using the same SSD in the new PC with the Manjaro installation, but I can’t deal with Manjaro problems anymore so it will be a fresh install of EndeavourOS but keeping configs if possible.
I mean… it works when it’s not broken I guess XD
I want to keep as many configs from my system as possible so the experience is similar to Manjaro, but without dealing with the problems that Manjaro has.
Have you thought that maybe EnOS doesn’t have the problems that Manjaro has, because it doesn’t do what Manjaro does?
Your quest sounds to me like those of Windows users when trying Linux.
I want a different OS, but I want it to work like my previous OS.
What is Manjaro doing to their users?.. Promises, promises…
Honestly I don’t know exactly what is Manjaro doing wrong. I just know that it breaks with updates, their forum doesn’t help at all, and broken things take too much time to be fixed. I keep using the AUR to solve things but it’s not supported so that breaks other things and still no help from the forum and… I had enough, if I have to use the AUR anyways and updates break things, then I’ll use Arch instead, it’s the same… but Arch is too much, so EnOS looks fine.
Just to make sure I am understanding this correctly.
Manjaro is on one physical computer with Nvidia.
You want to do a clean install of EnOS on a different physical computer with Non Nvidia graphics, and no Dual boot?
If that is the case, just do it. A clean install on the new computer will take care of the Nvidia problem. Install KDE and see what you get. Who knows you might like the unfettered look of EnOS better. Then it is just a matter of installing desired packages not included in the default EnOS install. When you see how fast EnOS is and you have already experienced the friendly helpful community here. Then you will have to decide how badly do you want to keep Manjaro for the few things (if any) that Manjaro provides.
Since it is on a different computer, you can always go back to Manjaro.
Yes, but I was worried about the Nvidia Drivers config in the home folder, I didn’t want to keep those. So it’s the best to copy just some folders and files manually from home folder, like Kresimir said.
None, tbh. I just need an Arch KDE with my configs. I have tons of scripts linked with shortcuts, clipboard actions and that kind of stuff I don’t want to redo.
