Migrating from my Pi4 to an old laptop (1/100)

Right now, I have a Raspberry Pi 4 at my parents home, since they have a great upload. However, it is reaching limit, because too much stuff is running on it:

  • Photoprism

  • Nextcloud

  • Jellyfin

That is a lot of stuff for such a small device. While everything works fine right now, I see the device struggling sometimes. Also, since the laptop from my dad ‘died’ and he now has a new one, I tried fixing the old one. I managed to start it back up with Ubuntu Server (I know, I know…). The screen may not work, but that does not bother me. Since it is a lot more powerful than a Pi, I will try to migrate the aforementioned programms to the new device.

Docker and Snap

Both Photoprism and Jellyin are running via Docker, which works great. However, I made the mistake of installing Nextcloud via Snap. I had my fair share of trouble with that, but right now it works^{tm}. Since I do not have a lot of time for the migration, I will keep on using Snap for now.

Preparation

I want to prepare as much as I can before going to my parents, so I have a lot of time for them when I’m there. So I copied the docker-compose.yml files for Photoprism and Jellyfin to the laptop and installed Nextcloud via a snap. I also backed up my Nextcloud instance using sudo nextcloud.export -a -b -c, which backs up the apps, the database and the configuration. Data will not be exported by this. The data itself is on an external HDD, which will be reused.

I also installed Wireguard, which I use to connect to my services. This should allow for an easy setup once I am there.

Starting the migration

Once I was at my parents house I realized that I forgot the fstab file which mounts the HDD. So I quickly copied it over to the laptop and commented out the relevant line on the pi.

Jellyfin

Jellyfin was pretty easy so setup. After starting the server via docker, I noticed that I forgot my config file. So I had to cop, that one too. Jellyfin was back. Faster than thought.

Nextcloud

This one was also surprisingly easy. I was sure, that this one would be troublesome. The weird thing: I copied over the export, ran one command, fixed one permission error and I was back. How?!

Photoprism/LibrePhotos

Okay, since everything worked fine so far, it’s time to create problems where none are. I was content with PhotoPrism, but maybe there is a better way now. So I chose to give Librephotos a try. After getting the docker-compose file, I follow the instructions for initial setup. After a maximum of 10 Minutes, mostly consisting of waiting for the pull to finish, it’s up.

Time to index my photos. This seems to take a while, which is fair considering the tens of thousands of images.

Done?

So, it looks like I am done. I’ll have to wait a few days to see if any issues creep up, but the transition seems to have gone very smooth. That’s pretty unexpcected, considering most of the transition was done on my phone, since I was on the move all the time.

Not Done

So, here we are. A day later I noticed, that I forgot two important things to.

  • My paperless instance which I use to handle all my documents. Kinda important
  • Duplicati. I FORGOT MY BACKUPS?! HOW?

So, it’s time to set these up again. Paperless was no problem, since it also ran in docker. Some copy and everything works.

After this migration, I really appreciate docker for this easy process.