fresh install and retain user installed packages

[jarviw]

So we want to upgrade to Elyssa, and since it's recommended to do a fresh install, now we have a problem...

We installed quite a few extra programs / games / fonts / themes and icons on top of Daryna over a period of time, and now we really don't want to go back to the big list of synaptic and reinstall each one by hand... I guess it will make most sense to upgrade rather than fresh install to keep these packages, but I really don't want to risk it and only have the system contaminated by ubuntu. We do have a separate /home partition, so I don't really worry about personal data / settings.

I don't know if AptonCD will work, since it basically just save the downloaded packages on a CD (and these obviously are outdated for the upgrade), but even a way to get a list of the extra packages we installed later will probably help to reinstall much of them...

Anyone has any fast and easy way to re-install all these extra packages?

[Fred]

jarviw,

There is an old saying, "A short pencil is better than a long memory."

I always keep a list of programs that I remove and add to a fresh install. Then I just cut and paste into a terminal and go have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie while it loads everything.

I keep a list in a text file like this:

sudo aptitude -y install preload kcontrol koffice program4 program5 etc. for however many programs I am adding.

Then I just paste the whole list into a terminal and let it run. I do the same for programs I am removing.

sudo aptitude -y --purge remove digikam program2 program3 etc.

It is pretty much pain free, but does require that you keep your list up to date as you add programs or delete them, so that the list will be accurate when you are ready to upgrade.

Fred

[jarviw]

Thanks Fred... that's a really good idea... I only wish I had done that.

and now I also realized that we have installed a few themes/icons via gnome-art... look like I will have to manually backup these...

[Fred]

jarviw,

You might want to consider using my back-up script for future data management. Your themes, bookmarkes, and other desktop settings are in your config files located in your /home directory.

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=12988

Fred