Re: Reinstall *all* packages. How?

[David Liontooth <liontooth@cogweb.net>]

ocl@arayan.com wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am able to login the amd64 box anymore, I have practically
> lost it as a bootable one.
>
> I do however have a lot of stuff (about 2GB) in
>
> /var/cache/apt/archives/
>
> My question is: After setting up a fresh system from CD,
> how can I make the newly installed OS update itself from
> these already downloaded packages.
>
> I have tried a simple copy of the old /var/cache/apt/archives/
> to the new installation, but simply copying the packages
> does not seem to work.
>
> Short of creating my local Debian repository, is there a
> way I can instruct apt-get (or aptitude) to use the files
> already downloaded.
>
> What I really want to do is a complete reinstall of the
> packages I have. Is that possible?

dpkg -i  *.deb

I recommend wajig, which makes it easier to handle the various
package control apps. In wajig you would issue

wajig install *.deb

You can also create a selective list of the packages and issue

wajig file-install <list name>

wajig is also useful if you need to force overrides etc. It's not
quite as powerful as dpkg, but simpler to learn.

Cheers,
Dave