backup tool in Mint 12

[DrMartinus]

I just upgraded to 12 (from 11) and hoped for not too much of a change, but I'm deeply disappointed. A number of things are not working the way I was used to, and I am not really satsfied with the way it works now (or seems to work to me). Here is one:

I saved my software selection with the backup tool in Linux Mint 11 and hoped to recover it under Mint 12, but I can't find the backup tool. The thing that's called backup or so is not the same, it's for backing up data, but not for software selections. This was a very useful tool, but Gnome 3 seems to have messed up everything. I had installed plenty of software and would like it back, but it will be a pita to do it all one by one...

[remoulder]

If mintbackup is missing you can simply install it via the Software Manager or synaptic.

[DrMartinus]

Ok, found it. Why is it not in the control center (which is also not there)? Anyway: I get the report that I shall correct damaged package dependencies, after having that done in synaptic, it still gives me that message...

Edit: I still can't find a way to solve this problem. Well, I probably have to install everything on my own...

[remoulder]

correct damaged package dependencies

Gnome 3 is a major change in the underlying OS, you can't expect older packages to be fully compatible without dependency issues.

[DrMartinus]

I agree, but if such a tool is provided, it should at least tell which apps cause the problem. I have a list of some 1000 or more apps, libraries etc which I would like to be installed, and I figure that most of them are, in the current version, compatible with gnome 3. The Mintbackup tool just remembers the software names, and tries to install the updated packages, not the old ones. Those for which no packages are provided, are automatically excluded from the list. It won't install old packages. But there appear some dependency issues with the new packages, and I'm not pointed at them except by a global information. Now I am installing them again one by one, and found so far one single package that didn't work. To find that out I spent 4 hours (and have appr. 4 more to go). The tool knows where the problem lies, so why doesn't it tell "this and that package has dependency issues"? There's work to do, and it's not much, but it makes life (upgrades) much easier!

[chammer]

A bit off topic, but figured this may help for future installs/re-installs...

With the same hardware you can use the following to effectively clone your system:

Backup installed packages:

Code: Select all

dpkg --get-selections > mypkgs.txt

Restore packages:

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sudo dpkg --set-selections < mypkgs.txt
sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade

Worked for me moving from version to version of Ubuntu, and even from Ubuntu to Mint. The main caveat, and something that you have to watch out for was that it will remove any packages not on the list (I learned the hard way and it forced a re-install), so you need to merge your current install with that previous list. I did so by doing the same backup method as above, and dumping to a second list and then merged the two lists by the following:

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cat mypkgs.txt >> mypkgs2.txt
cat mypkgs2.txt | sort | uniq > pkgs_to_install.txt

This dumps the pkg list from your previous install to the list you just created of the newly installed one, sorts the list, and strips out any duplicates to give you a final list. You can then run the above restore packages code block above to install everything. No version numbers are forced, so it will always grab the current ones for your distribution, and as they are part of the distribution they should work as if you installed them yourself.

[DrMartinus]

Well, this is an interesting approach. I'll remember it for the next update...