How do you use the output from "aptitude search" to re-install the packages on the new system?
--John -----Original Message----- From: Douglas Allan Tutty [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 4:22 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Replicate installed packages to new system On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 02:36:38PM -0400, Michael Pobega wrote: > On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 06:21:08PM -0000, McNamee, John wrote: > > I've been evaluating Etch for several months on a test machine, and now > > I'd like to install it on a production server. What's the best way to > > get the list of packages installed on the test system, and then > > re-install those packages on the new system? > > > > --John > > > > Well there's loads of ways you can do it. > > aptitude search "~i" will give you a list of your installed packages. > This will probably be a lot though, and will take a long time to install > them on the other computer. I use: #aptitude search '~i!~M' This shows only the packages installed (~i) but not automatically (!~M), in other words, the packages that I specifically installed. The difficulty with just using dpkg get selections is that the dependencies and some package names will have changed. It also allows you to maintain the anti-cruft features of aptitude going forward. Generating this list of packages is part of my daily cron 'housekeeping' script that becomes part of my overall backup strategy. Doug.
