Moving the msys64 folder

[goyalyashpal]

• msys was installed in c drive
• so, the msys64 folder had acquired HUGE size
• the C drive is on a separate disk, which is running overflow now

So:

• i'd like to move the msys64 folder to a new location on a separate drive
• and also change the default location used by programs inside it to that location
• and would like to know if there can be other implications of it

[Biswa96]

Instead of moving the whole installation, I would suggest to install msys2 again in the separate partition/drive. Then install all the packages in new installation by copying the packages list installed in previous one. And move any config file as usual. At last delete all the package in old one and remove the old install.

[Biswa96]

pacman -Qqs can show the list of installed packages.

[goyalyashpal]

i mean yes, this can list those, but how to "install them by copying that package list" ?

[Biswa96]

It's simple shell tricks.

1. In old installation, save the package list in a text file: pacman -Qqs > test.txt
2. In new installation, install the packages from that list: cat test.txt | pacman -S -

[goyalyashpal]

To self: will tackle this next after gathering the files

Things to gather:

• config files .bashrc etc (multiple locations, a bit tough search)
• history: 2 locations, easy
• pacman.log : 1 location , super easy

are there any other kind of log files? which might be useful

[goyalyashpal]

so, the concerned config files are only in home/ directory, the etc ones were untouched. that's better.
history files were also only on home dir itslelf

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I will be installing packages as i go :) currently,

• 'can only think of: gcc make clang.
• will seee for pactoys and
• python wslbridge2 someday later.

also stumbled upon an article on "Re-installing MSYS2" (semi-permalink)

• 5th pt is important: to save server bandwidth, reuse old cached package directory
  msys??.old\var\cache\pacman\pkg (370 MiB for me)
• other than that, i think it's old (see command for updating core package lol)
  pacman --needed -S bash pacman pacman-mirrors msys2-runtime
• '23.03.11: this removal change dbb67d2 for same command -S --needed at index.md#L60 (via blame)
  is very very welcome - it keeps the footprint light for both the installation size & -Syu upgrades bandwidth requirement

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2023.03.11

• some more nice tools i found: lftp unzip colormake-git
• i also noticed that man is missing now, it seems to be man-db via pacman -F man{,.exe}
  _{thanks to that discussion pacman `info` (Provide) `owns` & `list` executable files/commands #3593 (reply in thread)}
• some others: astyle:x qrencode:x (using pacboy translation codes)
• some others: (not installed yet due to confusions:) ctags cppcheck (kate-editor), and clang-tools-extra (for clangd.exe LS)