How to install a list of packages from a text file

[marinara]

Everyone knows that it's easy to install Lubuntu on a new PC.
Did you also know that it's easy to take a list of packages and install them automatically?

I based this post loosely on this.

open terminal (of course)
assuming you have a file named packages.txt that looks like this:

firefox
vim-gtk
guake
xchat-gnome
vlc
ispell
wordnet
rar
 unrar
htop

text file needs to list exactly one package per line, and no extra lines!

now in the terminal, execute the following 4 lines individually: (note the parens)

sudo su
apt-get install dselect 
while read line;do echo -en "$line install\n"; done <packages.txt|dpkg --set-selections
dselect

(type i at the prompt)

And it starts!

what I did, was every time I installed a package, i added a line to a text file named 'packages.txt'
So, I'm not installing anything not listed in the packages.txt file
Enjoy!

another way here

[marinara]

ok in the above, packages.txt is the name of the package listing. you will need to run dselect after you read the file with the bash script.
type i to install and wait

[markbl]

This is much easier.

sudo xargs -a packages.txt apt-get install

[gastly]

An easier way is to make your text file like this:

firefox install
vim-gtk install
clementine install
cowsay install

and then do:

sudo dpkg --set-selections < packages.txt
sudo apt-get -u dselect-upgrade

The advantage is that it allows you to remove packages as well, so you can replace install next to a package name with purge and it will remove that package. Also, there's no need to install the dselect package with this method.

Cheers