Re: reinstall all packages

[Dallas Foley <dfoley@telus.net>]

Daniel Burrows wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 20, 2007 at 08:23:06PM -0400, Marty <martyb@ix.netcom.com> was heard to say:
> > Tod Detre wrote:
> > A less drastic approach, which would not risk breaking anything, would be 
> > "apt-get install --reinstall $pkg" in place of the last two steps.  I don't 
> > know if it would accomplish the same thing, however.
>
>   This would do the same thing as aptitude's reinstall.  Since he said
> this left the "changed" files in place, I assume he's talking about
> conffiles, and the only way to reset those that I know of is to purge
> and reinstall.
>
>   Daniel
Correct.

What I've done (just as a test) was:
- do a deboostrap (etch) + custom built kernel
- copy it to a partition
- boot it
- change /etc/apt/sources.list to "gutsy gibbon"
- upgraded

I just thought that there would be a simple way in aptitude of saying:
"Just re-install everything and overwrite in one go"