Re: How to consistently install a set of packages?

[Gilles Mocellin <gilles.mocellin@nuagelibre.org>]

Le 07/06/2013 00:22, paul e condon a écrit :
> [...]
> > Are there any better methods I should be aware of, to ensure that
> > everywhere the packages are installed in the same sequence?
> David,
>
> I am involved in a project that parallels your's in that it is just as 
> 'outside the mainstream' as your's seems to be. I have found some 
> useful features of Aptitude for building and using a personal 
> selection of packages:
> To generate a list of installed packages, run;
>
> # aptitude -F "%p %M" search "~i" | tr -s " " > /root/packages-all
>
> This generates a list of all installed packages, followed by ' A' if 
> the package marked as needed by some other package.
> Run:
>
> # grep -v ' A$' /root/packages-all > packages-noA
>
> to generate a minimum length list of packages that must be installed 
> by Aptitude to force the installation of all packages via the 
> dependency mechanism.
>
> Then to install the whole lot on a nearly naked computer, run:
>
> # aptitude install $(cat /root/packages-noA)
>
> The files are text which can be edited in vim or emacs to remove cruft 
> that is actually on the source computer but that you really don't to 
> be automatically propagated to all your computers.
>
> The order in which packages are actually install is, I think, not 
> alphabetical. Aptitude has some internal logic that installs in an 
> order that is defined by the dependency tree.
>
> On a related topic:
> Numbering of groups depends on the order in which the named groups 
> were created during installation of the packages. You only have one 
> user so that one user will always have a uid==1000 on Debian. All real 
> users in Debian also have their own group, so your gid will be 
> gid==1000. If you list the file /etc/group, you will find gid == 1000 
> towards the end of the list, but not at the end because /etc/group 
> grows during install by adding new group name/gid as they are needed.
> You say the hardware of your several computers in not identical. There 
> will likely be differences in the dependency tree in different 
> architectures, so there will be problems over time keeping the 
> name/number pairs the same in different architectures and different 
> releases. I sure the problem is solvable but the effort may be beyond 
> what you want expend on going your own way. It does sound like an 
> interesting way to become very familiar with the insides of Debian, 
> and a rich source of knit-picking bug reports on the documentation ;-)
>
> Good Luck,
> Paul

You can have in one command what you do :
And more, with the installed version, to be sure to install the same 
version, even if there were updates since :

# aptitude -F "%p=%V" --disable-columns search '~i!M'

For the ordering problem. I dont think the solver is silly enought to  
install in a different order the same set of packages, asuming the 
starting state is the same of course.

Anyway, you can change the uid/gid afeterward if they are different !
And change the rights with a command like :

# find / -uid 120 -exec chown 110 {} \;
# find / -gid 120 -exec chgrp 110 {} \;