The process went fine but I uninstalled networking so gave up and
reinstalled, the problem is when a package gets updated it causes it to
appear on a different date that that on-which it was initially installed
so you can easily remove something you want to keep.
If I had been a little more cautious or if I was removing less from the
system it would have gone fine, all I need is a way of listing packages
by when they were *first* installed.
Hay ho, it's no substitute for aptitude but it was an interesting
experiment.
I would agree. End result is a broken system. Much better just to use
aptitude and mark packages individually. My addition to the script was
only as a learning exercise and Tyler fixed it to do exactly what was
wanted. I never would dream of running that.
What I don't get is why someone would even do something like that in the
first place. If one is worried about bloat, then install a base system
and add only packages that are needed.