On 30/05/11 13:51, david wrote:
I've been putting it off, but now the 9.04 repo has vanished, along with
the upgrade-to-new-distribution button in synaptic.
Are there any "gotchas" if I just change my sources list and do a
dist-upgrade? This is a complicated desktop which would be a horror to
rebuild, so I really would rather know any problems in advance
Thanks
David.
My way of upgrading that gets a machine back to what it was fairly
easily, and also gives a recovery point. Used multiple times with good
results while some dist upgrades failed, sometimes a contents of chair
problem.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-get-list-installed-software-reinstallation-restore.html
Hardware and Software failures are part of Life. That is why you need to
have a backup. I have already written about backing files and MySQL
databases. You need not to backup all installed binaries (mostly
software) with following tips. It will not just save your time but both
Debian and RHEL distro can update them instantly.
In order to reinstall or restore your installed software you need to
have a list of all installed software.
Task: Backup list of installed software
Debian Linux
If you are using Debian Linux use dpkg command to list installed software:
$ dpkg --get-selections
Store list of installed software to a file called
/backup/installed-software.log
$ dpkg --get-selections > /backup/installed-software.log
RPM based distributions (RHEL, Fedora Core, Cent OS, Suse Linux etc)
Use rpm command to get list of all installed software:
$ rpm -qa
OR
$ rpm -qa > /backup/installed-software.log
Task: Restore installed software from backup list
Now you have a list of installed software. After installing base system
you can immediately install all software.
Debian Linux
Debian Linux makes your life easy. All you have to do is type following
two commands:
# dpkg --set-selections < /backup/installed-software.log
Now your list is imported use dselect or other tools to install the package.
# dselect
Select 'i' for install the software.
RPM based distro
As far as I know RPM based distro does not offers dpkg kind of facility.
But with little shell scripting technquie you can easily install all
software:
# LIST="$( cat /backup/installed-software.log )"
If you are using yum, type the following for loop to install all software:
# for s in $LIST; do yum install $s; done
Update try out following command (thanks to gt):
# yum -y install $(cat /backup/installed-software.log)
OR if you are using RHEL (RHN subscriber) :
# for s in $LIST; do up2date -i $s; done
Alternatively you use following command:
# up2date -i $(cat /backup/installed-software.log)
If you want to repeat installation of all packages from your computer to
another one their is ideal solution to create list of all installed
packages on your computer. Open shell and type:
sudo dpkg --get-selections >
installed-programs
File"installed-programs" will be written inside your Home folder and you
can copy this folder. On another computer (computer on which you want to
import this list) type:
sudo dpkg --set-selections <
installed-programs
sudo dselect
This procedure will mark all inside list for download, and then it will
start will downloading and installation. Note that you also need to copy
file /etc/apt/sources.list. You also need to refresh files database with
command
sudo apt-get update
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