scottsmith77
September 24th, 2008, 04:29 AM
I've been a user of Ubuntu for about 6 months (other distros - 10 years).
What I don't understand is how to generate a list of packages which I've explicitly requested - just to have a list for recovery purposes (as a side note, I have /home backed up, and all desired configs in /etc and /var - just want a list of packages needed for reinstall).
I have seen:
$ dpkg --get-selections
But that lists ALL installed packages, including dependencies. So if I use that list for reinstall, all the dependencies are now explicitly requested, and can't be autoremoved if the
I also know about the debfoster package, but shouldn't it be easier than that? If I have debfoster, and I forget and use "apt-get" to install something, are my debfoster lists messed up?
Also, the dependecy information exists somehow - if I install googleearth, then purge it, the system knows that installed dependencies might need to be removed:
ssmith@laptop:~$ sudo apt-get purge -s googleearth
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
googleearth-4.2 googleearth-4.2-data
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
googleearth*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Purg googleearth [4.3.7204.836-0medibuntu1]
So based on that output, it seems like there should be a list of *requested* packages somewhere... but where?
What I don't understand is how to generate a list of packages which I've explicitly requested - just to have a list for recovery purposes (as a side note, I have /home backed up, and all desired configs in /etc and /var - just want a list of packages needed for reinstall).
I have seen:
$ dpkg --get-selections
But that lists ALL installed packages, including dependencies. So if I use that list for reinstall, all the dependencies are now explicitly requested, and can't be autoremoved if the
I also know about the debfoster package, but shouldn't it be easier than that? If I have debfoster, and I forget and use "apt-get" to install something, are my debfoster lists messed up?
Also, the dependecy information exists somehow - if I install googleearth, then purge it, the system knows that installed dependencies might need to be removed:
ssmith@laptop:~$ sudo apt-get purge -s googleearth
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
googleearth-4.2 googleearth-4.2-data
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
googleearth*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Purg googleearth [4.3.7204.836-0medibuntu1]
So based on that output, it seems like there should be a list of *requested* packages somewhere... but where?