Apt Backup Question

[david]

On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 22:51, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 02, 2005 at 06:19:14PM +0200, Simon Taplin wrote:
> 
> > I'm backing up my apt cache and list of files in the apt repositories for
> > if I need to reformat my machine or install more machines. By backing up
> > the list of files in the repositories, is apt smart enough to figure out
> > that security updates have not been installed on the new machine even
> > through they had been installed on the old machine?
> 
> What are you trying to accomplish?  It's generally not useful to back up the
> apt cache, because it is just that (a cache), and its contents can be easily
> restored from an Ubuntu CD or network archive.
> 
> -- 
>  - mdz

Well,
Some of us can either not afford, or have not the patience, to sit and
wait while 400+MB of packages come down the wire (again).
So to put /var/cache/apt/ on a cd saves a boatload of time on
reinstalling. I've been doing it this way from the first install with
Ubuntu and it takes Synaptic roughly the same amount of time to refresh
the package lists as it does for cp -R to copy the cd contents into the
cache. Then close synaptic and reopen it and of I go...
Most useful.

regards

David