Re: Question about get-selections
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. <bss <at> iguanasuicide.net> writes:
> In <loom.20090422T085218-105 <at> post.gmane.org>, J.M.Roth wrote:
> >Now... I've been playing a little bit with this.
> >
> >First, I get some
> >warning: Unknown type error, skipping line
> >using debconf-set-selections < ...
>
> Hrm, that's somewhat troubling. It won't affect which packages are
> installed, but it will affect how they are configured.
>
> >While that does not worry me much, I get a
> >xargs: aptitude: exited with status 255; aborting
> >at the end of
> >xargs -r -- aptitude markauto < ...
> >Probably, this is because conflicts are generated, however there were/are
> > no conflicts on the original system.
> >
> >Of and BTW you had better use:
> >#dpkg --get-selections | awk '$2 == "install"' > ...
> >(Note the *two* equality signs) I was wondering where all those
> > unnecessary conflicts were coming from
>
> D'oh!
I am still testing, and as far as I can see, conflicts are still present on the
system I try to restore to, even if the selections are correct... :-\
> http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/blog/entry/a-better-map-of-the-apt-
> state-files/ might help.
Indeed it does. Thanks :-)
> Daniel Burrows
I think Mr. Burrows' thoughts about how to restore the packages using its
metadata might be interesting. Surely, he must be a busy man. I have now started
a thread on the aptitude-devel list, where he seems to be active.
> >Oh and I guess to make things really right one would have to use
> >--get-selections '*'
> >during the backup, or an additional
> >dpkg --clear-selections
> >before the restore. Just a thought.
>
> --clear-selections before the restore makes sense. But, any selection other
> than "install" isn't really necessary to reproduce.
If you consider a base system that you try to restore to some previously
existing system that you took the backup from, that may be true. But if you want
to 'convert' a generic system to some other system (that you took the backup
from), it might be necessary to e.g. purge exim4 and install postfix, in case
the package management wouldn't figure that out on its own.
I have now mirrored the necessary package files in order to experiment on this
issue. I will let you know.
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