1. Introduction

1.1. Overview

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Aptik is a tool that can save you countless hours when reinstalling your operating system. Simply take a backup on the old system and save the backups to a USB drive. Format your system partition and do a clean install of Ubuntu (or any other Debian/Ubuntu-based distro). Boot up the new system and do a full restore with Aptik. Everything will be restored to the way it was. If you were browsing a web page with Chrome (or any other web browser) before taking the backup, you will find the same page open in Chrome after doing the restore.

What Aptik Is

Aptik is a data migration utility. It is used for migrating data and settings when re-installing the operating system, or upgrading to the next release of the Linux distribution.

What Aptik Isn’t

Aptik is not a data backup tool like Baqpaq. It does not keep mutiple copies of data. Every backup will overwrite the previous one. Take a backup only when you are ready to re-install your system, and restore the backups after the new system is installed. Backups should be restored on a freshly-installed system. Existing data and settings on the new system will be replaced.

Aptik is not a system snapshot tool like Timeshift. Timeshift saves a copy of system files and replaces the files when the snapshot is restored. Aptik doesn’t save system files. It saves information about what packages and settings are used by the system and applies the same changes to a freshly-installed system.

1.2. Supported Distributions

This app is meant for use on Linux distributions based on Debian and Ubuntu.

  • Debian

    • Debian 9 (Stretch) and derivatives

    • Debian 10 (Buster) and derivatives

    • Debian 11 (Bullseye) and derivatives

    • Older releases of Debian are not supported

  • Ubuntu

    • Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) and derivatives

    • Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic) and derivatives

    • Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal) and derivatives

    • Ubuntu’s current Non-LTS release, and derivatives

    • Older releases of Ubuntu are not supported

  • Derivatives:

    • PopOS, ZorinOS, MX Linux, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, ElementaryOS, and others

    • Linux Mint 19, 20, and later releases. Mint 18 and older releases are not supported.

    • Distributions based on older releases of Ubuntu are not supported

Not Supported

  • Solus and KDE Neon are not supported.

  • Arch Linux, Manjaro, Fedora, CentOS, SUSE, and other non-Debian distributions are not supported.

1.3. Supported Hardware

This software is meant for use on computers with Intel, AMD, or ARM processors.

  • Intel & AMD computers

    • 64-bit packages are available (amd64)

  • Single-board computers (SBCs) with ARM CPUs

    • 32-bit (armhf) and 64-bit (arm64) packages are available

    • Supports Raspberry Pi 4B/400 and Odroid N2/N2+

    • Supports Raspbian, Raspberry Pi OS, Debian, Armbian, and Ubuntu.

1.4. Installation

Aptik can be purchased from the store.

Installation steps and license keys will be sent to the email address provided at the time of purchase. Installation is as simple as running a one-line command.

Native packages and repositories (for apt/dnf/pacman) are available for supported Linux distributions.

1.5. Uninstall

Run the following command in a terminal window:

sudo apt-get purge -y aptik*
sudo rm -fv /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*aptik*

This will remove all packages for Aptik and also remove the repository.

1.6. Trial & Refunds

There is no trial version available but there is a 14-day refund policy. If the app does not meet your requirements, please drop an email to support@teejeetech.com within 14 days of purchase to get a full refund. The refund will be credited to the same mode of payment (Paypal, Credit Card, etc) that you used at the time of purchase.

1.7. Support

Limited support is available by email. You can send an email to support@teejeetech.com if you have any questions or if you face any issues.

1.8. Known Issues & Limitations

  • On some Linux distributions, the Wayland display server does not allow GUI apps to run as root. Aptik’s GUI cannot be started on such systems. If you are running a GNOME on Wayland session, you need to logout, and login to a GNOME on Xorg session. Aptik’s command-line version can always be used, even on Wayland.

  • Only Debian and Ubuntu-based distributions are supported. Fedora, ArchLinux, SUSE, and Gentoo-based distributions are not supported.