Help with asahi backup to prepare to move to asahi fedora 39 remix distro

[DaveFlashNL]

so i',m still on the old asahi, and it seems stale, updates won't install and so on, but I didn't know another place to quickly reach ppl in the know about this, so then i hope i can do it here, but what is the best way to back up user apps, settings and other stuff from asahi linux to external storage or cloud, and then delete the asahi partition from the mac, followed by a re-install using the asahi fedora 39 remix script, to do a complete clean install. and then to put back user stuff and apps and such. (i'm on m1 mba currently)

[rxhfcy]

I think this is a perfectly valid asahi-installer issue (enhancement request), and I don't think this GitHub issue should be closed even if this particular user learns what to do next, before first fixing the underlying issue!

This was not (and will not be) the only time in history for this exact same thing to happen: yet another non-expert user needs help backing up and deleting an existing old Asahi installation before being able to install Asahi Linux "normally".

In a perfect world, the installer would be able to perform the required steps automatically (back up, uninstall old installation, reapply user's settings from previous installation, etc), but:

SUGGESTION:

It would be great if the installer would automatically:

• detect if there's already an existing "old" Asahi Linux installation...
• ...and then offer to direct the user to a helpful website with detailed and helpful steps about what to do next (how exactly to back up the existing Linux installation (or just the /home directory?), how to delete any old Asahi partitions, then install a new Asahi installation, then copy the old home directory backup to the new Asahi installation or whatever):
• • so basically for example (warning: I am just a random Asahi user and this is NOT official Asahi project advice, just an EXAMPLE to illustrate my point!) a more user friendly version of what was said in this random Reddit comment, with even more details about what exactly to back up, why and HOW, and how to "restore" the backup etc.
• • including the relevant bits from hopefully a much shorter and more beginner friendly future version of the "Partitioning cheatsheet"

[DaveFlashNL]

well I am an expert just not at backing stuff up in linux, as it's never come up, my other linux installs are all vm's or on embedded devices, so for those I already have existing external means to move stuff about, but not in the case as it's on a non-standard boot partition on a live device that also has two different macOS version, so i'm tri-booting on that macbook air currently, but in this case i want to preserve as much stuff as possible from my asahi, as i use it for development

[rxhfcy]

well I am an expert just not at backing stuff up in linux

Sure, and you will not be the only user who won't have this particular "expertise" (my point was to emphasize that many users will be very confused, and the vast majority of them won't be filing bugs)

[Capta1nT0ad]

What I recommend (and what I did over two days) is to make a full system backup using Timeshift including the home directories, then install Asahi Fedora Remix, creating two users- one with an identical name to the old user and another with something like 'user-transfer'. Once installed, log into 'user-transfer' and cp the old home directory into the new one, then make sure to change the permissions so the original user can access all the files! Then log into the original user and you can reinstall programs as needed, and no user data or user configuration will be lost.

[DaveFlashNL]

@Capta1nT0ad that is something i can do, can you point me in the right direction for the timeshift software?

[Capta1nT0ad]

@Capta1nT0ad that is something i can do, can you point me in the right direction for the timeshift software?

You'll need an external drive big enough to store your entire system. You can get Timeshift from the official ALARM repositories (it is not available as a Flatpak). Simply set up Timeshift using most of the defaults but making sure to include your home folder as part of the setup. Just make a regular snapshot, then make sure you can access it manually from the hard drive.

After removing Asahi ALARM, you can just follow my first comment.