[xubuntu-users] Is there a way to get a list of added packages so they can be re-installed after a clean installation (as opposed to upgrade)?

[Peter Flynn]

On 05/08/2014 12:52 PM, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> Synaptic provides such an option somewhere in the menus. I'm booted
> to Arch Linux now, so I can't take look at it. However, Synaptic is
> a backend for apt, apt provides this too.
> 
> Another way seems to be to use dpkg: 
> http://askubuntu.com/questions/17823/how-to-list-all-installed-packages

Unfortunately neither of these does what is wanted.
I've been bit^H^H^Hcomplaining about this for years.

What is needed is a list of all *additional* packages installed *since*
original installation (but *excluding* those which were installed as
part of the original install). That is, all those packages (ideally with
their dependencies) which you have explicitly requested, *not* the
packages which formed part of the original install.

I now keep a manual list in a file called packages, and force myself to
add to it every time I install something extra. That doesn't include
depdendencies, though. The file is backed up via my private svn repo, so
on a new machine I just haul it off and pipe it into apt-get.

///Peter