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All the countless hours spent on the :linux: #Linux Desktop Migration Tool are finally paying off! My wife got a new laptop yesterday. I installed :fedora: #Fedora #Silverblue on it, created a user account, connected it to the home network, and left the migration tool running overnight. She could start using the new laptop without any interruption in the morning, and the whole thing took like 15 minutes of my time.

codeberg.org/sesivany/linux-de…


linux-desktop-migration-tool

Linux Desktop Migration Tool aims to make migration from one Linux desktop machine to another as easy as possible.
Codeberg.org
#linux #fedora #silverblue
in reply to Garrett LeSage

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Jiří Eischmann

@garrett at the moment it only supports direct migration. Doing a "backup" is something I'm considering, but I would have to completely rework the script because it's run on the destination machine, not the origin. Now the only workaround is having a 3rd machine (e.g. a VM), migrate the data and settungs there and then migrate them from there to the new installation.
@Garrett LeSage
in reply to Jiří Eischmann

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Jiří Eischmann

Just out of curiosity I tried vibecoding a GUI app (written in Python, GTK and libadwaita) based on the migration script in Cursor.
It really rewrote every feature, created a desktop file, AppStream metadata, icon, flatpak manifest... I started getting an existential crisis... and then it tried to build and run it and was running into dependency issues and cutting features until it got down to a simple demo window that finally worked. 🙂
A window of an app written in GTK and libadwaita that says Linux Desktop Migration Tool, has a list of two items and two buttons.
in reply to Václav Pašek

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Jiří Eischmann

@electricCZ it would look nice as a desktop app, wouldn't it? But I don't have time for it and I'm not definitely gonna vibecode it. It would be unmaintainable bloatware.
I asked it to optimize the ssh connections in the script and it added 120 new lines. I asked it to come up with a more intuitive directory selection and it added 600 lines (the current one isn't ideal, but it's only 40 lines of code).
@Václav Pašek
in reply to Jiří Eischmann

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VildaVedo

Yeah, and that's the problem. I literally lose my mind creating DEs and basically all GUI software solutions for Linux by breaking the Unix philosophy and, by small steps, leading towards a mainstream Microsoft-like solution.

I still can't understand why DEs don't have a centralized directory to store all configurations, which can be transferred to another computer, and settings for the whole workspace are just done.

in reply to VildaVedo

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Jiří Eischmann

@VildaVedo yeah, it requires a lot of cherry picking of settings, not great, but it's doable. For example after the migration I can open Evolution and start where I stopped at the previous machine, but in order to do that, I have to reinstall Evo, move the app data, migrate dconf settings, migrate the NSS database (for certificates), migrate GOA configs (for online accounts), migrate the keyring (for secrets), migrate GPG keys. And if you do all this, you get the wow moment when you open Evo on the new machine and it's the same and ready to use.
@VildaVedo
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