dotfiles VS aconfmgr

Try my config for test: https://github.com/raven2cz/dotfiles/blob/main/.config/alacritty/alacritty.yml

Configuration example: * https://github.com/raven2cz/dotfiles/blob/main/bin/lock.sh

Nice! I'll definitely be taking a look at the rest of your dotfiles.

Establishing a backup strategy. I'm using BTRFS with snapper and a pacman hook that creates a new snapshot before each upgrade. With ext4 I used timeshift. Besides that, I save my arch configuration with aconfmgr and my files with borg

Since my last cloning I've setup aconfmgr and and systemd-homed. I've also been playing around with archinstall configs to partition the system with encryption how I like. In the future I'm planning to use archinstall and aconfmgr to setup a new system for me and then I'll copy over the backup of my home directory.

try this https://github.com/CyberShadow/aconfmgr

Have you tried aconfmgr? In addition to installing packages, it also tracks configurations in /etc and modified files.

For my backup I keep files in my home directory synced with my NAS via syncthing. For my system backup I don't actually backup up my system, I configure my system via aconfmgr and that config is stored in my home directory and synced to my NAS. Using aconfmgr to "backup" my system is extremely space effecient, my aconfmgr config is only 1.7 MB.

aconfmgr (in AUR) can be used to save and restore system configurations and installed packages. For user configuration you can use a dotfile manager like chezmoi (in repo).

I know you prefer backing up manually, but aconfmgr might be for you.

To get something closer to nix on arch I like to use aconfmgr.

For those who are not familiar with Arch's aconfmgr, well I have not used it before but just saw it in a post. But it seems to be a configuration manager for Arch. It tracks, manages, and restores your Arch Linux OS configuration.