List of user installed apps

[Nigel Ridley]

Willy Hamra wrote:
> 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
> 
> 

Wow! That really is a complete 'Howto'.
Just one thing that I'm not sure about -- the part about

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

Can you explain the 'CRTL-V, CTRL-TAB' part.

Blessings,

Nigel