Jetpack Flight Log » aptitude http://jetpackweb.com/blog Rock{et}ing the interweb Wed, 19 May 2010 22:21:53 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Linux Tip: Keep track of packages you have installed http://jetpackweb.com/blog/2009/09/14/linux-tip-keep-track-of-packages-you-have-installed/ http://jetpackweb.com/blog/2009/09/14/linux-tip-keep-track-of-packages-you-have-installed/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:12:01 +0000 Brian Racer http://jetpackweb.com/blog/?p=369 During development on a linux system, you probably install many packages using your favorite package manager. When you have to use a new system, or reimage your current one, it can be a pain to remember all the packages you had setup. One solution is to keep a list of the packages installed after the OS load, and then periodically generate a list of what has been added since.

On a freshly installed system, create the starting baseline list of packages:

# On Debian based systems(Ubuntu):
dpkg --get-selections > packages-alpha.txt
 
# Or CentOS/Fedora:
yum list installed > packages-alpha.txt

You can run the command again at a later time, concatenating the output into a different file so you can view what has changed since the original system setup. Use a diff tool like diff3, vimdiff, or meld:

meld packages-alpha.txt packages-omega.txt

On Debian systems, once you have that file you can use it in a new or different system to mark packages to install using the –set-selection parameter:

dpkg --set-selections < packages-omega.txt
sudo apt-get upgrade
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