I installed Ubuntu 6.10 on my Sony VAIO laptop about two weeks ago. Since then, I have installed umpteen modules/packages to get some functionality or the other working. Right from detecting the widescreen to being able to play MP3 files.
In the excitement of getting things to work, I did it in kind of an urgency. As a result, I don’t really remember which modules got working which functionality. The mode of operation was to google for the problem I had, then try out all the remedies various people suggested until one worked. I am pretty sure there are certain things I did that were not really needed. I want to start clean again and document the process. But looking back at it, it looks like a mammoth task.
So far I have used Synaptic Package Manager to install/remove all the packages. I wish there was something in the Package Manager that would tell me which packages I added since the initial install. Even better, it could export a list of packages that exist in my Ubuntu installation. Then I could import this file after a fresh install and get back to the state I am now. Similar could be done for .conf files that were added or modified.
Now, this may be wishful thinking or it may as well already in there somewhere. If it’s wishful thinking I think its a useful feature. If its already in there, I just haven’t found it yet. If you know something that does this, drop in a comment.
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January 15, 2007 at 1:45 pm
frenchninja
This is a wild guess, but I know that installing programs via apt-get after a fresh install of Debian-based distros, dumps the original .deb package into /var/cache/apt/
I *think* it only does this for the programs you’ve installed yourself (i.e not during the installation of the distro).
So I’m wondering if you did a ‘ls’ of that directory and wrote a small bash script that ‘apt-get install’s all those packages that you need. Then after a fresh install of Ubuntu, you’d just run the script, and it would go ahead and install all that stuff.
That’s what I’d do anyway. Out of curiousity, were there that many problems that you had to install stuff to fix? Things like mp3 support and stuff like that are most easily fixed by installing Automatix2 and getting all those extras that don’t come standard
January 15, 2007 at 9:44 pm
netmma
@frenchninja: Yes, the directory does have all the .deb files. I should be able to write a script to install them all after a fresh install. I can also ‘find’ all the .conf files changed since my last install and keep a copy of them for later reference.
Thanks for the advice!
January 15, 2007 at 10:14 pm
frenchninja
If you can back up your .conf files to some sort of other hard drive (or usb drive), you’d be set. I have a script that I run, post-install, that apt-gets a heap of extras, Nvidia driver, etc, and also copies a backup of my entire home directory that I’ve saved onto an external hard drive, back across to the machine. A couple of minutes later and my system is fully customized, all because of one bash script
Have fun!