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Method to save your favorite Linux apps for reinstall
(lemmy.today)
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this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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For Arch you run
pacman -Qewhich lists all installed packages that were not installed as a dependency. I output that to a location via golang script which is monitored by the pCloud client for automatic backup along with a lot of other configs from$HOME/.config. I then have a systemd service that fires the script and a timer to kick off that service periodically.Just to add a bit more to this for the newbies who are using Arch (god help you).
Will write this list to a file, run without the '> packages.txt' if you just want to see the output and;
Will install all of the needed (i.e. not installed) packages from that list.
This is incredibly useful, sucks that I'll forget this is a thing by the time I need it.
Just remember that you can easily generate a list of all explicitly installed packages. You'll figure out how exactly when you end up needing it.
This is how I do it. I'll see something and think 'hmm, interesting' and completely forget any of the details but I'll remember vaguely that something exists then I can search for it.
Language models are pretty good at solving the 'I think I remember something that does this specific thing but don't know where to look' kinds of problems (don't just blindly run LLM generated commands, kids). Then once you have a lead, traditional searching is much easier.