Important update:
Aptik is no longer free. It is now paid application.
Today, we will be discussing an important and useful topic that describes how to migrate system settings and data from an old system to a newly installed Ubuntu system. Even though upgrading to new Ubuntu system seems fairly easy, some of you still prefer fresh installation. However, we have to spend few hours to make a perfect Ubuntu system after a fresh install for day-to-day usage. Not anymore! Meet Aptik, a simple and useful utility that helps you to migrate your old Ubuntu system's settings and data to a newly installed system with a single click.
Aptik will backup the following items:
- System's settings,
- Old PPAs,
- Software packages,
- Application settings,
- Themes,
- Mount entries,
- Users/groups,
- Home directory data
- Scheduled tasks
All items can be backed-up/restored either individually or all at once by single click. And, of course, you can restore them to your newly installed Ubuntu system without much hassle. Just backup all items to any external drive using Aptik, and format the system, and install Ubuntu, finally migrate all settings and data to the newly installed system. Sounds good, isn't it? Aptik will not eliminate all the work that needs to be done after a fresh Ubuntu installation, but it will reduce it greatly.
Migrate System Settings And Data From Old System To Newly Installed Ubuntu System Using Aptik
Aptik will work on all Ubuntu-based systems such as Linux Mint, Elementary OS etc. Aptik developer has made a PPA to ease the installation. Run the following commands one by one to install Aptik on your Ubuntu system.
$ sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:teejee2008/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install aptik
Once installed, launch Aptik either from Menu or Unity Dash.
Here it is how default interface of Aptik looks like.
Aptik default interface
As you see in the above screenshot, the interface of Aptik is very user-friendly. Even a non-Linux user can easily understand how to use it.
To backup an item, first select the backup location.
The destination directory could any local folder or any external drive. After selecting the destination, just click on Backup button. In the next window, Aptik will display the list of items as shown in the screenshot below. Click Backup button again. Aptik will start to backup the selected items and save them in the destination directory.
Want to backup all items at once? Just click on One-click backup button on the bottom.
You can define which items should be included in the backup and which items should be restored from the One-Click settings button.
Likewise, you can either restore a single item by clicking on the Restore button right next to the each item or all at once by clicking on the One-click Restore button on the bottom.
Suggested Read:
- Backup And Restore Linux Desktop System Settings With Dconf
- Backup Installed Packages And Restore Them On Freshly Installed Ubuntu System
- Create A List Of Installed Packages And Install Them Later From The List In CentOS And Ubuntu
Conclusion
Aptik is a must-have utility for all Ubuntu-based users. You don't need to spend hours to install packages, add PPAs, user settings, systems settings of your old system. Just backup them using Aptik, and restore them back after installing Ubuntu. Aptik worked pretty well as it advertised. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed.
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4 comments
It appears that this program restores every program/library. This is fine if you’re doing a fresh install of the same version, but would it not be ill-advised if, say, upgrading from one LTS to the next, where libraries, utilities, and drivers might have been changed over the years? It seems likely that at least a great many useless pieces of software might find its way onto the system, to say nothing of potential conflicts – especially in the settings area of the restore.
Am I off-base about this?
I’ve just spent hours manually editing a program list text file for my wife’s laptop. I deleted most of the libraries — including the graphics libraries. Of course there are some libraries I wanted saved/restored, like dvd-css, and other media related libraries I had to manually install, but by and large all I want is a list of the programs I personally installed or prefer over the standard ones. I’m not a programmer and haven’t had to study a page of code in thirty years. My eyes were crossed by the time I finished.
I would really like to see a utility like this that was smarter, and had options for safely restoring after a distribution upgrade.
You’re right. This tool is useful only if you install the same version of old OS.
you forgot to mentionate intallation for gui :sudo apt-get install aptik-gtk
Aptik last updated on August 03, 2018. Install Packages can be found here. Now Deprecated and no longer FOSS.
https://github.com/teejee2008/aptik/releases