The apt
command has the nice behavior to log all what you request it to do in /var/log/apt/history*
file. This is quite handy, because in case of reinstall you can see which packages you have installed/removed/etc in the old system with the command:
zcat history.log.{6,5,4,3,2,1}.gz | cat - history.log| grep "Commandline" | egrep "install|remove "
Which will output things like (excerpt):
Commandline: apt-get --auto-remove install xpra
Commandline: apt-get --auto-remove install python-opengl
Commandline: apt-get --auto-remove remove xpra
Commandline: apt-get --auto-remove install winswitch
Commandline: apt-get --auto-remove purge fonts-khmeros-core
Commandline: apt-get --auto-remove install terminator gnuplot-doc gnuplot
which, with a bit of programming (eliminating pairs of install/remove), could be reduced to a series of packages to install to have a handy list to reinstall your preferred software after afresh installation. If you look at the history*
filea, all these actions are timestamped too, which can be quite handy.
The only really missing thing is that the log is missing changes to the repositories, especially the add-apt-repository
used to add the PPAs.
Is there any place where the commands that add/remove PPAs or repositories log their actions?
PD: I know how to list all active PPAs in my system --- and I can add all the PPAs first, and then replay the installs --- no problem. But I would like to have the addition of the PPAs in the above list, in the correct sequence.