Saving Installed Packages Before Reinstalling Feisty

[Derek Broughton]

Tony Arnold wrote:

> I'm not sure how to do what you want but dumping the contents of
> /var/cache/apt an restoring it to your new system may do the trick. I've
> never tried it so I'm not 100% sure about this.

Not merely - perhaps copying /var/cache/apt/archives and restoring them
into /var/cache/apt/archives/partial might do the trick.  Otherwise apt
doesn't know that it already has a local copy of the file. 

When you download a package, apt saves it into the "partial" directory, and
when the download is complete copies it to the parent dir.  This allows it
to resume interrupted downloads.  If the complete file is present
in "partial", I _suspect_ (but in no way guarantee :-) ) that it will start
the download, complete immediately, and move the file to the "archives"
directory.
-- 
derek