Re: how to reinstall?
On Sat, Nov 03, 2007 at 04:09:57AM -0400, Kevin Mark wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 04:19:28PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 11:22:17PM +0200, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> > > On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 02:29:29PM -0400, Kevin Mark wrote:
> > >
> > > > - do 'dpkg --set-selections < mypackages' for setting packages
> > > > - do 'aptitude dselect-upgrade' to install all packages
> > >
> > > I always just run 'aptitude install' for this. Where is the
> > > 'dselect-upgrade' action documented? A quick search through the man page
> > > and the README didn't provide anything related.
> >
> > its documented in apt-get. I don't know if it is in aptitude or not.
> >
>
> I thought aptitude had that. I found the info in the debian-reference:
> -------------------
> http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-package.en.html
> -------------------
> 6.4.9 Record/copy system configuration
>
> To make a local copy of the package selection states:
>
> # dpkg --get-selections "*" >myselections # or use \*
> # debconf-get-selections > debconfsel.txt
>
> "*" makes myselections include package entries for "purge" too.
>
> You can transfer this file to another computer, and install it there
> with:
>
> # dselect update
> # debconf-set-selections < debconfsel.txt
> # dpkg --set-selections <myselections
> # apt-get -u dselect-upgrade # or dselect install
As part of my backup script, I run
# aptitude search '~i!~M' > apt_inst.sel
This gives a list of al pacakge installed (~i) that aren't (~!) marked
as automatically installed (~M) [in other words, manually installed].
Then to do a reinstall, I do a base (no tasks selected install), then
run aptitude and set things up so that it doesn't install recommends and
that only those packages that I want installed (from my list) are marked
for manual install. Run 'g', 'g' to clean out the cruft of a base
instal I don't want (like locales) and change debconf to
debconf-english. Then I start with some important-to-me things like mc
and lynx. From there, I get things back in a few stages: text-mode,
exim, vim, then the big things like X, Konqueror, etc.
The actual time spent selecting things manually like that (based on my
list) is small, especially compared to the time aptitutde spends
downloading everything over dial-up.
Doug.
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