Reinstallation of the same packages on Debian

For the transfer of a Debian or Ubuntu machine, or to make a mirror of it, it is often needed to reinstall the packages that are installed one one system on an other one. We will explain it in here.

The dpkg way of doing

First of all, we need to grab the list of all installed package and save it in a text file. Here we will save it in installed_packages.txt.

# dpkg --get-selections > installed_packages.txt

The installed_packages.txt file contain a list of package and their installation status:

aalib1                                          deinstall
abiword-common                                  deinstall
acroread                                        install
acroread-debian-files                           install
acroread-escript                                install
acroread-plugins                                install
adduser                                         install
adept-notifier                                  deinstall
affix                                           install
akode                                           deinstall
akregator                                       install
alsa-base                                       install
alsa-oss                                        install
alsa-tools                                      install
 [...]

After transferring the list of packages on the new system we need to load it inside dpkg, with the following command:

# dpkg --set-selections < mes_paquets

Then, we need to say to apt-get to grab this selection to set the package to install and remove:

# apt-get dselect-upgrade

Finally a classical upgrade is required:

# apt-get dist-upgrade

The aptitude way of doing

Grabs the only the manually installed packages on the current system in installed_packages.txt:

# aptitude search -F%p ~i\!~M > installed_packages.txt

The installed_packages.txt file contain a list of package, without status unlike for the dpkg way:

aalib1
abiword-common
acroread
acroread-debian-files
acroread-escript
acroread-plugins
adduser
adept-notifier
affix
akode
akregator
alsa-base
alsa-oss
alsa-tools
 [...]

After transferring the list of packages on the new system, we just have to give it to aptitude or apt:

# aptitude install $(cat installed_packages.txt)

# apt-get install $(cat installed_packages.txt)

The advantage of this method is that only the manually installed packages will be installed, with corresponding dependency. It will therefore set correctly the database use to detect the manually installed packages, and not with all the packages that were installed on the first system.