Update vs Reinstall

[Derek Karpinski]

I'm running 10.10, and am quite happy with my setup, installed packages, settings, etc.

I have my /home folder on a separate partition.

I've gathered from the forums here that upgrading can turn into a horror story rather quickly and very often. I'd like to install 11.04 over my 10.10 install but what will I lose?

I assume that I will not format my /home when I update, but I'm guessing all installed packages (besides wine that exist in my home folder) will be gone and I'll have to reinstall them.

Is there any way to make a list of the packages I have installed now and if I do install 11.04 over 10.10, I could easily automate grabbing those packages?

Thanks!

[Paulgirardin]

This will output package information to a file in your home directory.


dpkg --get-selections > installed-software

And if you wanted to use the list to reinstall this software on a fresh ubuntu setup,


dpkg --set-selections < installed-software

followed by


dselect

[xzero1]

Didn't know this. Thanks. This info might be good to post in Tutorials and Tips subforum.

[Derek Karpinski]

This will output package information to a file in your home directory.


dpkg --get-selections > installed-software

And if you wanted to use the list to reinstall this software on a fresh ubuntu setup,


dpkg --set-selections < installed-software

followed by


dselect


Thank you sir! :KS

Is there any way to use apt-get instead of dpkg? From my very limited knowledge of them both, apt-get handles dependencies better. Or.........I have no idea what I'm talking about. :)