On 01/05/11 11:36, Charles Plessy wrote:
Le Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 11:49:57AM +0100, Tony Travis a écrit :I wanted to make sure that 'biobuntu' was as close to Bio-Linux as possible, but based on Ubuntu instead of Debian. I wrote a script "dpkg-dsel" to compare the 'dselect' selections of two machines or to compare the current selections of one machine with a reference list of package selections obtained from the installation media.Dear Tony, comparing the output of “dpkg --get-selections” will not only reflect the difference of what the “bio” pakcages need, but also the differences between Debian and Ubuntu in general, plus the differences in the way they were installed.
Hi, Charles.It was only during the initial stages that I compared Debian (Sarge) and Ubuntu (Dapper). Bio-Linux is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, so I'm now actually comparing an Ubuntu derivative (Bio-Linux) with Ubuntu.
I feel that it would be simpler to rely on APT than on dpkg, by having a list of packages that are required for your system to be a “biobuntu”, and letting APT pull everything else that is necessary. That will also help you to upgrade from one Ubuntu release to the others.
I just use "dpkg" to set the selections, I then install them using: aptitude -f install
The list of packages can be a meta-package. You could either write one from scratch, or modify the Debian Med blends packages. It would not be too difficult to unbrand or rebrand them.
Yes, I've thought of creating a meta-package - One thing that has stopped from doing that me so far is not knowing how to create a package dependency tree and how to prune off all the lower level dependencies that could be installed automatically. A meta-package containing an exhaustive list of all the required packages would not be an elegant solution, would it?
However, an additional use of my "dpkg-dsel" script is to compare the package 'selections' installed on different machines. I do this to track the differences between various installations of Bio-Linux and Ubuntu as well as comparing against a reference list of packages based on the manifest of the 'squashfs' filesystem on the installation media.
Thanks for your helpful comments, Tony.