🚀 Debian-Based Home Migrate & Package Tracker

Migration shouldn't feel like digital archaeology.

Most tools just dump a list of 2,000+ packages, leaving you to sift through the noise of automatic dependencies and library bloat. This project takes a different approach: it finds the "Peaks."

🧠 The "Peak Package" Philosophy

Mathematically speaking, this tool identifies the Minimum Spanning Set of your system's software. Instead of a flat list, it calculates the smallest possible collection of manually installed packages required to reconstruct your entire dependency tree.

• Leaf-to-Root Traversal: To handle the "Recommends" field and those pesky circular references, the tracker crawls the dependency graph starting from the leaves. This ensures that even complex, self-referencing loops are captured without missing a beat.
• Alternative Dependencies: The tool acknowledges that modern package management isn't always linear; it highlights potential alternatives, giving you full control over your system's reconstruction.
• Hermetic Rescue: Designed to work even when your OS has "given up." If your local Python is ancient or broken, the included setup script spins up a standalone, portable Python 3.12 environment.

🛠️ Key Features

• Smart Snapshots: Capture "Peak Packages" on the old system, baseline your new system, and surgically install only the differences.
• ExFAT-Friendly Execution: Since non-Linux filesystems don't support execution bits or symlinks, the tool automatically unpacks its runtime into /tmp (RAM-disk) to bypass mount restrictions.

📋 Quick Workflow Overview

1. Old System: Load the portable Python and capture a snapshot of your peak packages.
2. Home Migration: Archive and move your actual home directory data using the provided scripts.
3. New System: Restore your home directory, create a fresh baseline, and sync your missing "Peaks" via apt-get.

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On Previous System

1. Remove any old snapshot with the same name to avoid stale comparisons.

rm ~/package_snapshots/prev_install.txt

2. If the old system Python is older than 3.10, load the portable Python environment.

source ./setup_python.sh

3. Capture a snapshot of the current manually installed peak packages.

python3 pkg_tracker.py --create prev_system
# Example output:
# Saved successfully: 365 packages recorded (/home/user/package_snapshots/prev_system.txt).

4. Archive and migrate your home directory data.

/bin/bash migrate_home.sh /home/user

On Next System

1. Restore the previously created backup archive.

sudo /bin/bash restore_home.sh backup_taxy_20260419_100000.tar.gz

2. Install pkg-tracker on the new machine.

/bin/bash install_pkg_tracker.sh

3. Keep the old base snapshot as prev_install for base filtering.

mv ~/package_snapshots/base_install.txt ~/package_snapshots/prev_install.txt

4. Create a fresh baseline snapshot on the new system.

pkg-tracker --create base_install

5. Compare the previous snapshot against current state while ignoring base packages.

pkg-tracker --base prev_install prev_system

Or do a quick compare against a named snapshot:

pkg-tracker prev_system

6. Install missing packages that were present in prev_system.

sudo apt-get install $(pkg-tracker --base prev_install prev_system --pipe-output-set removed)

7. Restore the fresh-install package state.

sudo apt-get autoremove $(pkg-tracker base_install --pipe-output-set new)

Install From Git

Clone the repository and enter it:

gh repo clone taxy/debian_based_home_migrate
cd debian_based_home_migrate

Install as a normal end-user tool:

python3 -m pipx install .

Or for development (editable install):

python3 -m pipx install -e .

Enable Bash Tab Completion

Enable shell tab-completion for pkg-tracker in bash:

echo 'eval "$(register-python-argcomplete pkg-tracker)"' >> ~/.bashrc

Reload shell config in the current terminal:

source ~/.bashrc

Verify Installation

After installation, the environment exposes this command:

pkg-tracker --help