Migrating apps from fedora 42 to fedora 43

User Support General
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1

Pretty self explanatory, fedora-42-xfce is phased out and the template manager is offering the 43 version. Is there a way to migrate all my downloaded applications to the new version? Or do i just list them in terminal and manually re-download

2

There are 2 options that I am aware of without manual reinstalling of each app in a fresh template:

  1. In-place upgrade. You may want to avoid it if you are unsure your f42 was safe enough.
  2. Install fresh f43 template. Export all packages from f42 with, for example:

#dnf repoquery -qa --qf ‘%{name}’ --installed | grep -v – ‘-debuginfo$’ | grep -v ‘^(kernel-modules|kernel|kernel-core|kernel-devel)$’ > f42.lst

and then install packages from that list in f43.

I am not aware of any other (semi) automated way to be cost-effective enough.

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3

A habit that can help you with templates in general (and not just this specific hurdle) in the future is to notate packages you install and other changes you make with Salt states.

A habit that can help you with templates in general (and not just this specific hurdle) in the future is to notate packages you install and other changes you make with Salt states. For any Salt state you write that worked on Fedora 42 but did not work on Fedora 43, Salt will show you what did work or did not along with providing affirmative that something did get applied correctly.

https://docs.saltproject.io/en/latest/ref/states/all/salt.states.pkg.html

For .AppImage files, the Salt state file.managed can be useful.

https://docs.saltproject.io/en/latest/ref/states/all/salt.states.file.html

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4

This is the way.

Salt can be complicated, but equally it can be straightforward.
You can create a state file, /srv/salt/Qube4/packages.sls :

my_qube_packages:
  pkg.installed:
    - pkgs:
      - qubes-core-agent-networking
      - antiword
      - edbrowse
      - mutt
      - offlineimap
      - orca
      - w3m

And then apply it:
sudo qubesctl --skip-dom0 --show-output --targets=fedora-44 state.apply Qube4.packages

If you want more packages in the template, just add them to the list,
and rerun the state. This way you have a self documenting system.
Keep those state files backed up, and you can transfer them to another
machine and run them there, or share them with friends or colleagues.

You can do the same with configuration, for dom0, templates and individual
qubes. Your whole system will be fully documented. You can work with
salt at this basic level and be quite productive.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

1 Like
5

I agree Salt is great, but when you are aware of packages you need. So, getting packages list is essential, as I see it. Everything afterward is a matter of preference. I find this obvious especially when customizing template with packages that are not apps themselves. Sometimes those packages get obsolete in the next version, and if customized template is based on those, then the whole purpose of upgrading template has to be reconsidered. So, it’s never as easy as like “let me upgrade the template this or that way”. For the casual users it probably is, though.

That’s why I decided to use option 2 I stated above: Almost instantly I am prompted in a terminal window about obsolete packages so I can reconsider the fact thus the purpose of a template when needed.