How to obtain list of installed packages

[Petter Adsen]

On Fri, 20 May 2016 16:27:16 +0800
Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:

> In the process, something has apparently gone wrong with the table
> that manages the partitions (the GPT?), and the start point and end
> point locators and/or the partitions sizes records.
> 
> If I knew how to reproduce the particular error message, it would
> probably be quite helpful, in all of this, as I may be completely
> wrong, in my perception of the need to rebuild the file systems on the
> HDD.

Try 'sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda' if the disk is indeed GPT. That should
list the partition table, and would probably display error messages if
something is wrong.

> What I was intending to do, was to stay with 15.10, until the
> publicised problems with 16.04, had been resolved/disappeared.

16.04.01 is scheduled to be released 2016-07-21, by then it will
probably be a whole lot better.

> I had understood that the support for non-LTS versions of Ubuntu, was
> about 18 months. I must be wrong, in that understanding

Support for non-LTS is 9 months, as in three months after the subsequent
release is finished.

> > Try the above. Also remember to copy any configuration files you
> > would like to save from your home directory (and /etc). Configuring
> > everything from scratch can easily take a lot more time than
> > re-installing packages.
> 
> Okay; I intend then, to try that, when I can.

I forgot to mention that a full backup before you upgrade or reinstall
is a very good idea, although it shouldn't be necessary to say so :)

Also, I wouldn't try to create an archive with apt-clone on 15.10 and
restore it on 16.04. It is probably better to restore it also on 15.10
and then run do-release-upgrade.

Petter

-- 
"I'm ionized"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."