Move your Ubuntu system to another computer in 3 simple steps

You just got a brand new machine but you won’t like to spend hours tuning it to get the same configuration as the one you have used for years?

Let’s transfer your Ubuntu configuration and applications to your new computer in three simple steps.

This method is cross-architecture. I moved successfully my configuration and applications from an Ubuntu 9.04 32bit to a 64bit one.

Prerequisites:

The same version of Ubuntu is installed on both machines. The architecture (32/64 bit) can be different.

Step 1: Store the list of installed packages

Run the following command on the source machine to store the installed packages names in ~/pkglist:
sudo dpkg --get-selections | sed "s/.*deinstall//" | sed "s/install$//g" > ~/pkglist

Step 2: Transfer your config

Use scp or rsync or even a flash drive to transfer your home directory (~/*, ~/.*), the source list (/etc/apt/sources.list) and any other files you customized or installed (like apache config under /etc or softwares on /opt) from the source machine to the target one.

Step 3: Install packages

On the target machine run the following command in a failsafe terminal session to install your packages:

sudo aptitude update && cat pkglist | xargs sudo aptitude install -y

That’s all folks!

Log into your new machine and keep working as if you were using the previous one.