On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:58:41 -0700 Eric Wilhelm <[email protected]> dijo:
> # from John Jason Jordan > # on Friday 23 October 2009 20:29: > > >I could use > >information about how to get a list (printout) of all installed > >applications. > If you installed them with aptitude, `dpkg -l | grep '^i'` or perhaps > `dpkg --get-selections` possibly informed by the dpkg manpage and/or > googling "debian list installed packages". For backup, I think the > sacred files holding this data are in /var/lib/dpkg/. dpkg -l grep '^i' gave me pages of incomprehensible stuff. dpkg --get selections was a little better, but still not simple enough. I think I just need to get a piece of paper and write down what is in Applications. > You can print this stuff on paper, but you could also feed it straight > into aptitude to keep it busy for a while once you've installed the > base packages. If you're crossing a release boundary, some of the > package names will have been changed to protect the innocent and new > stuff will have 2s and 3s tacked on it. Aptitude will not be running. I will wipe the partition and do a fresh install. > >I could also use a list of all configurations that I > > have made to Ubuntu, including a list of all repositories I have > > enabled. And I could use a list of a lot of other things needed to > > get me back where I am, things that I haven't even thought of yet. > > Everything you've ever done as root to configure your system is in the > git history of your /etc/ directory iff you uses git to track changes > to your /etc/ directory. Otherwise, it's going to be hard to tell the > difference between what you changed and the defaults. Sadly, I don't know what git is. Guess I never used it. > But even with a full history, upgrades often change the comments and > make a very noisy diff. There are also scripts that run when you > install a package (and sometimes those ask you questions about stuff) > so it's no simple matter to extract the difference between defaults and > decisions. You could diff your backup against the newly > installed /etc/, but that's likely to be a really big diff to read > through. Replacing the files after install is not a good idea because > the package configuration scripts would have made changes to deal with > options in the new versions and lots of stuff would probably break. > > Your repositories should be in /etc/apt/sources.list At least that part I understand. I can make a printout of /etc/apt/sources.list. > >I really don't want to do a reinstall, yet there is something messed up > >in Xorg, Gnome, or bluetooth on my Jaunty laptop. > > It still might be simpler to fix that than to start over. Then setup > etckeeper or something so you have a record. I have spent hours trying to fix it. The problem is figuring out what is installed by a default fresh install, and compare that to what I have installed. But that only discloses what I am missing. What if the problem is that I have something installed that I should not have installed? And we are not talking about half a dozen packages. It's at least hundreds. > When I upgrade across releases, I use dist-upgrade, so everything > in /etc is intact and most of the packages carry-over your old > settings. So do I. But upgrading a broken installation is not likely to mend the broken parts. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
