Installing same packages in a Squeeze installation in a new Wheezy installation

[Ken Heard <kenslists@teksavvy.com>]

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In a new box where the Wheezy OS will be freshly installed I want to
install all the packages which I presently have in a box with Squeeze.

In section 2.7.16 of Aoki Osamu San's excellent Debian Reference,
titled "Recording and copying system configuration" appears the following:

You can make a local copy of the package and debconf selection states
by the following.
# dpkg --get-selections '*' > selection.dpkg
# debconf-get-selections    > selection.debconf

Here, "*" makes "selection.dpkg" to include package entries for
"purge" too.

You can transfer these 2 files to another computer, and install there
with the following.

# dselect update
# debconf-set-selections < myselection.debconf
# dpkg --set-selections  < myselection.dpkg
# apt-get -u select-upgrade    # or dselect install

Will this command sequence generally work when the "from" box has
Squeeze and the "to" box has Wheezy?  Specifically, will the packages
installed in the Wheezy box having the same names as the ones in the
Squeeze box be the Wheezy versions rather than the Squeeze versions?
 I would assume that when the second group of commands is run any
packages or config files already in the Wheezy box which are later
versions of than those in the Squeeze box would be left alone.

Also it would appear that where there are no exact equivalents in the
two boxes the Squeeze versions would be installed if the dependency
situation allowed it; otherwise they would not be.

To know what happened when the second group of commands is run can a
log file be thereby created for that purpose?

Regards, Ken Heard
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