List of user installed apps

[Willy Hamra]

2009/8/28 Nigel Ridley <nigel at prayingforisrael.net>:
> Earl Violet wrote:
>> --- On Fri, 8/28/09, Nigel Ridley <nigel at prayingforisrael.net> wrote:
>>
>>> From: Nigel Ridley <nigel at prayingforisrael.net>
>>> Subject: List of user installed apps
>>> To: "Kubuntu Help and User Discussions" <kubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
>>> Date: Friday, August 28, 2009, 5:43 AM
>>> How do I get a list of user installed
>>> apps? (getting prepared 9.10).
>>
>>> Blessings,
>>>
>>> Nigel
>>
>> Are they in /opt?
>>
>> Earl
>>
>
> Just Firefox 3.0 and Adobe Reader 9. But those really were manual installs that I downloaded from
> their respective websites and manually copied them to /opt
>
> I was referring to those that I did:
> 'sudo apt-get install package_name'
>
> Blessings,
>
> Nigel
>
>
>

Nigel, i asked a similar question a while ago, let me quote from the
ancient thread:

Willy K. Hamra wrote:
> i cleaned my system from almost all the packages i don't want, digging
> through the installed packages for more unnecessary ones, which i guess
> is a good enough punishment for my lack of organization, random apt-get
> sprees, and installing loads of packages at once without bothering to
> read through them, just because some website suggested so :-P

Willy,

I don't think there is anything to worry about. Even if you don't use
aptitude, you should be able to achieve what you want. For some reason,
I only use apt-get and not aptitude ('cos I am familiar with it), and I
like to achieve exactly what you are looking for.

Declaratively, what you want is:
You want to move from version A to version B (could be, that for a fresh
re-install, A = B).

You want to:
-----------

- Start with a clean install of version B
- NOT remove any packages that are part of the default install of
version B (safety)

- Know what additional packages you installed in version A - List1

- Derive the "top-level" packages that you asked for and not list all
the new packages include those installed as dependencies - List2

- Use either List1 or List2 to quickly get Version B as close as
possible to the current state of Version A

Declaratively this becomes:
--------------------------

Amongst the packages currently installed, select those that are not part
of the default install - List 1

Amongst List 1, select those that are "orphans" (top-level packages) - List2

To do this, all you need are the standard tools (dpkg, grep cut etc) and
deborphan. From the man page: "deborphan finds  packages that have no
packages depending on them. The default operation is to search only
within the libs  and  oldlibs  sections to hunt down unused libraries".
If it's not installed you should install deborphan.

On the clean install (even if it is a new distro), run
dpkg --get-selections | cut -f1 -d '    '> default-list

Note that the character between single quotes after cut -d is a TAB
(enter it using CRTL-V, CTRL-TAB on the command line)

You can do this e.g. by booting the LiveCD of your current (or new)
distro. If you use the live-cd, copy default-list to some place on your
currently installed version and reboot into your current version.

In the current version run
dpkg --get-selections | cut -f1 -d '    '> current-list

Note that the character between single quotes after cut -d is a TAB
(enter it using CRTL-V, CTRL-TAB on the command line)

In the current version run
deborphan --no-show-section -a > current-top-level

cat current-list | grep -vFx -f default-list > new-packages
This (new-packages) is List1

cat new-packages| grep -Fx -f current-top-level > packages-to-install
This (packages-to-install) is List2

If you want to just install Version B and get it as close to your
current state of version A as possible, I would recommend you do the
default install, and then install everything in List1 (can also use
List2 if you want).

If you want to peruse the list of top-level packages you have asked for
and installed, that is List2 - you MUST have asked for all these, since
they are top-level packages. Note that there MAY be other packages that
you had asked for and installed that are not in List2 but are in List1,
but do not appear in List2 because they are no longer top-level
"orphans" because since then you installed another package that depends
on these.

Hope this helps.

Sundar Nagarajan


-- 
Willy K. Hamra
Manager of Hamra Information Systems