apt-get system reinstallation

[Bart Silverstrim]

NoOp wrote:
> On 07/09/2008 07:02 AM, sktsee wrote:
>> On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:06:19 -0400, Bart Silverstrim wrote:
>>
>>> Is there a simple way to try a "reinstall" of everything currently
>>> installed on my system?
>>>
>>> I have 2 Ubuntu 8.04 systems, one where youtube videos crash Firefox
>>> constantly (flash problem?) and the other doesn't seem have trouble
>>> playing flash videos. So while the latest Firefox and flash plugins from
>>> the repos may have troubles, it may be a combination problem of some
>>> kind on the one that is causing issues?
>>>
>>> I didn't know if there was a simple way to try an in-place reinstall of
>>> software to see if it was a linking or dependancy issue that could be
>>> causing flash videos to keel over on the one system.
>> "sudo aptitude reinstall ~i" might do it. Never tried it myself, though. 
>> Obviously, you should backup your data before attempting. 
> 
> Bart: I've got a test server drive w/ubuntu-desktop & xubuntu-desktop
> system that I just installed yesterday for testing, I'll be happy to try
> sktsee's command on it to see what happens if you'd like. That way you
> won't have to risk it on yours first.

Thanks. That might be interesting information to know the outcome of for 
anyone in a similar situation.

I'm wondering if I've stumbled into the Ubuntu version of "dll 
hell"...it's weird that FireFox works fine with flash on system A and 
not on system B; correct me if I'm wrong, but that would imply that 
there's something installed on system B that isn't on A and conflicts, 
despite %99 of the software being from Synaptic/Apt-get.

Or it implies corruption of some sort, but I haven't been getting errors 
that I can find in logs for anything. Perhaps a way to verify all the 
installed packages would also be handy. I'll have to dig through Google 
and see if such a beast exists. :-)