Hi didrocks, Thanks for working with me to develop a good overview for OneConf (<a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneConf" target="_blank">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneConf</a>) and for considering my design ideas. If I understand correctly you are the desktop team member who will be leading the OneConf effort? I'm excited about this idea and I'm eager to help design and code it as much as I can. I've been thinking about your suggested method of using Software Center to obtain a list of user installed packages (minus dependencies & Ubuntu base packages). I have taken a look at the list of installed applications as reported by S-C and I do not believe it works. I'm not sure how software center decides which packages go into this list, but it seems to contain both base packages as well as dependencies of installed packages. See <a href="http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1t7wjd&s=5">http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1t7wjd&s=5</a> This shows some base packages listed in Software Center, like Archive manager and Calculator. See <a href="http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=148jay1&s=5">http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=148jay1&s=5</a> This was taken right after command 'sudo apt-get install dia'. Software Center is showing the library files and common files for Dia. Do you know how Software Center decides which packages go into this list? I've looked at the source code (briefly) but I did not find much. I'm sure a more thorough investigation would turn up more information but I'm not sure if it is worth the time since the list does not seem to be filtered how we want it to be. If using Software Center turns out not to work then we are back to either detecting user installed packages from the data we already have or modifying apt to save more metadata about installed packages. I noticed that you marked the later idea as unrealistic. May I ask what your reasoning is? Certainly changing apt in a way that is 100% backwards compatible is not out of the question, correct? Also, the previous work I mentioned on the Wiki (<a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackageDependencyManagement" target="_blank">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackageDependencyManagement</a>) did something very similar to what we need. Not only does this previous effort set precedent for such a change it even provides the framework for new extended package states. It seems as though it was the intention of the developer to allow others to add new extended package states. Since this is exactly what we need, why not take advantage of it and simply create the new package states? Thanks for your time and consideration. note: I'm cc'ing the ubuntu-desktop list as others may have input or be able to fill in the gaps in my Software Center knowledge :). Sorry if you get this twice, the 1st one was rejected by the list server as the attachments put it over the maximum allowable size. -- - Jason J. Herne (<a href="mailto:hernejj@gmail.com" target="_blank">hernejj@gmail.com</a>)