Comments on: Linux Get list of installed software for reinstallation / restore software

By: elyograg

elyograg — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:39:24 +0000

This is what I did. It ensures that if the list is long enough to exceed the length limit on a command, it will still work:

cat installed-software.log | xargs yum -y install

By: Doc

Doc — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:58:20 +0000

But….
rpm -qa
Returns the long name, with version number, distro and arch,
for ex. gnome-utils-libs-2.28.3-1.fc11.i586
And if you try to install this list on a newer version distro you get
No gnome-utils-libs-2.28.3-1.fc11.i586 package availabe.

You shoud use:
rpm -qa –queryformat “%{NAME}\n” > packages.log

The problem is that I’ve just figure out this, just when I’ve formatted and installed a newer version of Fedora. Is there a trick to use the list I have? because there is no pattern at all to use sed/awk, isn’t it?

By: AShok1288

AShok1288 — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:27:24 +0000

i can’t automate the installation process in fedora since it is asking
“Total Download size:xxMB
Is this ok [y/n]?”
every time for all packages i have to give ‘y’ to download the package …………

is there any other way to automate the process?

please helpme……………………

By: johnhere

johnhere — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:26:52 +0000

Nice to see Debian and RPM based distro’s working so peacefully together in this
gr8 tutorial. I gonna give it a try to put this as an aftercare script in a kickstart file.
I want to call it a ‘clone kickstart’. ;-)

ks.cfg extracted/edited from a fedora distro /root/anaconda-ks.cfg

for rpm:

%post
for i in $(cat /some_network/kickstart_server/installed-software.log) ; do
packages+=”$i ” ; done
yum install -y $packages
%end

Just an idea so correct me if i am wrong. That saves time. ;-)

By: JK Wood

JK Wood — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:54:16 +0000

For Slackware-based distros:

ls /var/log/packages

By: Diabolic Preacher

Diabolic Preacher — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:55:04 +0000

for debian/ubuntu method. will it reinstall all the 1313 packages that i noted as being saved to the backup log or will it skip the packages that need not be updated?

By: Narendra Sisodiya

Narendra Sisodiya — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:39:29 +0000

suppose i have 3 software A B and C
now i have taken backup..in log file..
now,, I have installed D and E , and removed B
– If Now i will restore then i will be having A B C D E , but is now a full restore,,,
ideally,, you need to create a new backuplist of software which has A C D and E
and then find the diff so that you can get D and E are extra software to remove first and B is need to installed. also,, you need to check that software are available or not, but nice article ,,, can be integrated in Yumex

By: ZaK

ZaK — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:42:08 +0000

Im new to linex i was viewing utorrent in VNC i closed it by mistake how do i run it again so i can view the current activities

By: Don

Don — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:02:34 +0000

Just what I needed :-)
Linux is great!!!

By: peace

peace — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:57:29 +0000

nice tut man I LOVE LINUX too much

By: Caio

Caio — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 18:50:50 +0000

That’s why I LOVE LINUX!

By: cambo81

cambo81 — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 00:08:59 +0000

hi im new to this comp. stuff but i just got 1 question. i installed a game as imess around my laptop i uninstalled the game that i just installed. how can i recover that lost game cause i do not have the disc anymore please help me.

By: Motin

Motin — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 02:55:22 +0000

There is a huge disadvantage using package lists – it lists a lot packages that one have not chosen to install but are installed because they are dependencies. This makes it veeery tedious to restore if the list is somewhat old or using another distro since dependencies change a lot.

For debian-based system: Install “debfoster” and run it. After answering a lot of questions about your packages you will have a system without unnecessary packages and a short list of only the packages that you have actively chosen to install.

By: chewie

chewie — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 18:10:16 +0000

For Debian systems, you can also grab the debconf database and use it to preseed the installation questions that occur, including how to partition your hard drive. This allows you to completely automate the installation process. Check out the debian-installer Install manual at http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/apb.html.

By: Grant

Grant — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 07:24:55 +0000

When you install with CentOS it puts the list of installed rpms in /root/install.log. If root’s home dir is backed up you’re in business. Although I doubt if it’s update after the install.

Couldn’t you just create a kickstart disk after install/config and pop it in to reinstall then do a yum update? That would get you closer than just reainstalling packages. Of course all of this is fun to talk about but realistically you’d have backups and you’d just restore… I backup MBRs and files. Throw a live cd in the machine to be restored and from the backup server – dd if=/backup/MBR.bin | ssh “cat | dd of=/dev/hda”

It’s late and this is from memory but I think that’ll work to restore the MBR across the network. Then format and restore from backup.

By: nixcraft

nixcraft — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 04:47:19 +0000

apt-get command does not support this kind of facility. You need to use dpkg command only.

By: zerohalo

zerohalo — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 02:51:43 +0000

How would you do this on Ubuntu using apt-get instead of dpkg?

By: Matthew Hall

Matthew Hall — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 22:06:35 +0000

Even easier – Fedora users should get their installed packages list automagically updated every day to ‘/var/log/rpmpkgs’ – so, assuming you’ve taken a backup and restored the file the following should suffice:

yum -y install $(cat /var/log/rpmpkgs)

By: nixcraft

nixcraft — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:45:55 +0000

Short answer YES

Long answer – Both dselect and aptitude act as a Debian package management frontend.

By: TQ

TQ — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:16:01 +0000

Instead of dselect, can aptitude be used instead? What are the parameters involved?

Thanks.