[linux-help] Re: Debian/apt guru required...

[Thomas Wallis <wallis@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

        Dear Jeremy:

        If you already have Debian running and want to make a list of the
packages currently installed, you can use this command:

        dpkg --get-selections "*" > /tmp/packages.foo 

This will write a list of all currently installed AND uninstalled packages
on your system to /tmp/packages.foo.  You can copy this off to a floppy to
save it.  

        The reverse command to read the list in and make dselect honor it
is:

        dpkg --set-selections < /tmp/packages.foo 

        The moment in the fresh install that you do this in is important.
It must be done at just the right time in a second shell window
(CTL-ALT-F1, CTL-ALT-F2, etc...).  I normally have one shell in dselect
and the other at a command line:  

        In dselect:  
        1. choose access and fix up your sources.  
        2. run update
        3. do NOT run select.  
           instead, go to the command line in another shell window and
           type in the command above.  
        4. Then go back to the dselect window and then run select.  It
           will have the choices already filled in.  Make any changes you 
           want and proceed as normal.  

I don't know any way yet of getting Debian to "remember" the answers to
all the 1001 questions it asks you during the install.  I think that the
Debian team is working on it, but I haven't seen it in their current
release (potato, 2.2r2). 

        John Goerzen showed this trick to me several years ago, and it is
very useful.   I use it a lot. 


                        Hope this helps,

                        Tom Wallis

On Wed, 13 Dec 2000, Jeremy King wrote:

> 
> I'm in the process of whacking mandrake off of all my
> machines and replacing it with Debian.  A simple
> gateway ipmasq server is working wonderfully.  But, on
> my second box I spent a long time picking through the
> dselect package list only to discover that neither
> lilo nor grub really appreciate my current
> partitioning scheme (this is my dual-booting game
> box). I don't see any way of fixing the partition
> table short of obliterating the debian install.  I
> wouldn't mind doing this, but I really don't want to
> repeat my effort going through the package selection
> process a second time.
> 
> Is there a way that I can use apt to save a list of
> the packages that are currently installed, reinstall
> the base system, then use apt-get to reinstall the
> files from my package list?
> 
> I don't mind reconfiguring the packages--it's just
> that picking through thousands of packages in dselect
> drives me nuts.
> 
> Jeremy
> 
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Disclaimer: All opinions expressed here are my own and not those of WSU.

EMAIL address:  wallis@xxxxxxxxxxx    wallis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  

   




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