Re-intsall / Upgrade Mint while keeping installed packages?

[weaston]

I would like to upgrade my mint 9 installation to the newest version. Is there a way I can create a backup of my installed packages which are not included with mint out of the box so that I don't have to download them all over again after the upgrade?

Thanks

[Aging Technogeek]

The MintBackup tool will make a list of all installed applications and store it in a designated area. The only problem is that it does not make a backup of your sources.list or sources.list.d so if you have added any repos or ppas to your sources, the backed up app list will not be able to reinstall any apps from the added sources.

You can open /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sourcs.list.d as root and copy the lists to the same location as the saved apps list, then, in the new installation, first replace the default sources lists with your saved lists then run the backup tool to reinstall all apps.

[canada_dry]

I paranoiacly throw together a new APTonCD iso every time I add a package. I've had occasion to use it a few times and it works great. The built-in restore function doesn't work for me so I just open a terminal and type in

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg -i -R /wherever/youriso/ismounted