Fast package reinstall

[Aphoxema]

I've reinstalled ubuntu several times for one reason or another, and one thing that's getting me is remembering what all I had installed when I do.

Is there any way to use like, /var/lib/dpkg/status to back up the list of packages I have installed and then use that later to reinstall those packages?

[Herman]

I'm sorry I can't answer your question directly, but I can offer you the following link, how to Backup installed packages on ubuntu (http://www.ubuntugeek.com/backup-installed-packages-on-ubuntu.html) - Ubuntu Geek.
A list of packages in /var/cache/apt/archives would give you a pretty good idea,

ls /var/cache/apt/archivesI just make a backup of all the .deb packages (the entire contents) of my /var/cache/apt/archives and them copy of of those into /var/cache/apt/archives in the new installation.
It means the packages are all there already so I don't need to re-download them again before installing them.

mkdir Backup
sudo cp /var/cache/apt/archives/* Backup/Then I just re-install the packages again, any old way I like, using apt-get or with the gui add/remove or synaptic, it doesn't matter, the main thing is that nothing needs to be re-downloaded which saves a lot of time and some bandwidth.
That's a nice simple way of doing things.


If you want to be a little fancier, a command you might find useful could be
sudo dpkg --listYou can make a command like that send it's output to a file for you if you want, like this,

sudo dpkg --list >> packages.txtIf you ran the above command in a fresh new installation and then installed all the packages you want, you could run the same command again but creating a second text file,

sudo dpkg --list >> addedpackages.txtThen you could use the diff command to make you third text comparing those two files and giving you a list of the added packages,

diff packages.txt addedpackages.txt >> addedsoftware.txtI have read that a command something like the following might then be useful, it should work but can't remember if I have tested it myself yet,

sudo dpkg --get-selections > addedsoftware.txt ; dpkg --set-selections < addedsoftware.txtYou should be able to have some fun with some of those commands, I hope you'll find something useful there.

Regards, Herman :)

[wolfen69]

you probably want APTonCD (http://aptoncd.sourceforge.net/). download the .deb file or get it in Synaptic.

[Aphoxema]

Herman, I think that will be very useful. Thank you.

[robert shearer]

Maybe think about backing up your working install to dvd as a live reinstall disk with all your apps and data,(then adding any updates via aptoncd ?)

see this link for more info http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/
and this how-to http://www.ubuntugeek.com/creating-custom-ubuntu-live-cd-with-remastersys.html