Linux: Backup or not: /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew

[lamyergeier]

Additional Info

• I am using Windows Subsystem for Linux

Output of brew config

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 4.4.20-180-g673f190
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 673f19086b0909b13664b2a3873f26025ad5236c
Last commit: 3 days ago
Branch: master
Core tap HEAD: 793c4c26ceb23c4fd12202149773765697299859
Core tap last commit: 3 days ago
Core tap JSON: 14 Feb 05:42 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew
HOMEBREW_BROWSER: firefox
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_CURL_PATH: /bin/curl
HOMEBREW_DISPLAY: :0
HOMEBREW_EDITOR: codium
HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN: set
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 16
HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE: set
HOMEBREW_SORBET_RUNTIME: set
Homebrew Ruby: 3.3.7 => /usr/bin/ruby
CPU: 16-core 64-bit alderlake
Clang: 19.1.7
Git: 2.48.0 => /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/git
Curl: 8.9.1 => /bin/curl
Kernel: Linux 6.12.11-200.fc41.x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
OS: Fedora release 41 (Forty One)
Host glibc: 2.40
/usr/bin/gcc: 14.2.1
/usr/bin/ruby: 3.3.7
glibc: N/A
gcc@11: N/A
gcc: 14.2.0_1
xorg: N/A

Output of brew doctor

Error: /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Cellar/numpy/2.2.3 is not a directory

Description of issue

Should I backup /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew or not? Is it sufficient to just know what all packages were installed by brew?

[SMillerDev]

That depends, do you have important data there that you want to keep? For example a MariDB database.

[gromgit]

If you're asking whether to add $HOMEBREW_PREFIX to your regular system backup, then I'd recommend it. Relying only on brew bundle dump to rebuild your Homebrew setup in the event of a system catastrophe will mean you lose forever:

• customised config files in ${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}/etc,
• databases and other program data in ${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}/var,
• Python/Node/etc. modules you manually installed, probably in ${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}/lib,
• other stuff that I can't recall at the moment.