David C. Rankin wrote:
Listmates:
If I want to clone my package selection to another box, is there a better way to do it other than just parsing the files in /var/cache/pacman/pkg to generate a list to feed to pacman after install on the second box? Something like:
for i in $(find /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ -type f); do TMP=${i##*/} FILE=${TMP%%-[[:digit:]]*} echo $FILE >> ~/linux/INSTALLED done
Then after install on the new box:
pacman --sync --refresh
pacman --sync $( < ~/linux/INSTALLED)
--or--
while read file; do pacman --sync $file done < ~/linux/INSTALLED
I've picked around a bit and can't find a pacman option that is somewhat the equivalent to rsync's '--files-from' that would allow me to read the list to pass to pacman directly from a file. I don't know if pacman can do something like this or how many files it can handle at once if the list of files is piped or redirected to it. I don't think the second while loop would work either from a dependency perspective, and, the repeated calls to pacman would make it slow as hell.
What's the current thinking on the best way to do something like this?
If you're looking for something simple, I have a script in the AUR called Packup that allows you to backup and restore installed packages.