How to reinstall *everything*?

[Luis]

I suggest you download my backup.pl script:

http://lems.kiskeyix.org/toolbox/?f=backup.pl&d=1

Then become root:

sudo -i

then create a file called .backuprc with:

# # uncommend below what you want to customize
# # BACKUPDIR must be specify for the script to work properly.
# # unless you want to put the files in /home/backup
TAR=/bin/tar
# #COMPRESS_LEVEL=9
# ## bzip2 or gzip? or don't define if no compression is needed
COMPRESS_DO=/bin/gzip
# ## prefix to name of the file
NAME=my-desktop
#
# ## Users must define this
BACKUPDIR=/home
# ##perl compatible + shell regex
# #EXCLUDES=.*contain-this.*|\.ends-in-that$|starts-with.*|[0-9]*|.[a-z]*$
#
#DIRS=other_dirs_to_backup_separated_by_spaces_or_commas
SYSTEM=/etc /var/mail /var/spool /var/lib/iptables /root
LOW_UID=1000
#EXC_ULIST=

This script just backup all your directories defined in SYSTEM and all
your users' homes with id's higher than 1000 (regular users). All the
files will be placed in
/home

They will have names like: my-desktop-system-`date -I`.tar.gz,
my-desktop-other-`date -I`.tar.gz, my-desktop-`list of users`-`date
-I`.tar.gz

And finally there will be a file called: my-desktop-selections.txt.
Which is created with: dpkg --get-selections \* >
my-desktop-selections.txt

Once that's done, you can reformat your disk (assuming you can copy
the tar files from /home to a safe disk, say a DVD).

When you are done, re-install ubuntu using a Dapper disk. Then get the
my-desktop-selections.txt file and re-install the stuff you had before
with:

sudo -i
cat my-desktop-selections.txt | dpkg --set-selections
dselect update && dselect install

After that, if you ever need a configuration from your old system, you
have a tar file that you can open by double-clicking on it, and copy
the file to your /etc folder.

Generally, unless you are on a server, you don't need these files ;-).
ubuntu does the right thing for you at installation.

Hope that helps somebody out there...


On 9/16/06, Alexander Skwar <listen at alexander.skwar.name> wrote:
> Hello!
>
> As I'm having very strange problems with Firefox and Thunderbird (see
> "Can't start Thunderbird and themes in Firefox look bad"), I'd like to
> reinstall all the packages that I've currently got installed.
>
> To do so, I tried to use aptitude. In aptitude, I highlighted "Installed
> packages" and pressed L "Request that a package be reinstalled.". After
> that, all the installed packages were selected for reinstallation. But
> when I have aptitude start the installation, I get errors like this:
>
> ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
> │E: I wasn't able to locate file for the linux-headers-2.6.15-25 package. This▒│
> │   might mean you need to manually fix this package.                         ▒│
> │E: Internal error: couldn't generate list of packages to download            ▒│
> │                                    [ Ok ]                                    │
> └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
>
> So I deselected all those packages which gave me these errors. But then,
> I get:
>
> E: Couldn't configure pre-depend perl-base for debconf, probably a dependency cycle.
> A package failed to install.  Trying to recover:
> Drücken Sie zum Fortsetzen die Eingabetaste.
>
> And now I'm fed up ;)
>
> Is there an *easy* way to reinstall all the currently installed packages?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Alexander Skwar
> --
> Dick sein ist keine physiologische Eigenschaft - das ist eine
> Weltanschauung.
>                 -- Kurt Tucholsky
>
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-users mailing list
> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>


-- 
----)(-----
Luis Mondesi
*NIX Guru

Kiskeyix.org

"We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and
you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on" --
Steve Jobs in an interview for MacWorld Magazine 2004-Feb

No .doc: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.es.html