Has the software selection changed in the Server Installation?

Question

I've installed Ubuntu Server about half a year ago and i accidentally chmoded a+rwx / (yep not a good idea). So i downloaded the 12.04.1 and the software selection section of the installation has changed. Before it included lots of packages while now it's only 8 i think.

So am i mistaken and it haven't been changed or was it changed and if it was is there any way of getting the old one back?

Answer 1

If you want to get back a list of all currently installed software, dpkg helps. I assume that you can still access your old harddrive. So at a working Ubuntu system you can enter dpkg --get-selections to get a list of all currently installed software. In your case you have to modify this a bit:

1. Use a live CD or another Linux system.
2. Mount your old harddrive (mount /dev/sdX1 /media/sdX1 where X is the letter for your drive)

3. Open a terminal and enter

   dpkg -root=/media/sdX1 --get-selections > installed-software.txt

The X above should be the correct letter where your drive is mounted. dpkg opens the file /media/sdX1/var/lib/dpkg/status and reads informations about currently installed software. This will be written to the file installed-software.txt. Now save this file to a USB stick or some other media.

Now you can install a new Ubuntu system. When this is finished and rebooted, open a terminal and enter:

apt-get update
dpkg --set-selections < installed-software.txt
apt-get -u dselect-upgrade

Now all software from your old system is selected and will be installed to your new system.

Answer 2

The list of tasks shown by tasksel is always being updated from release to release, however at the bottom of the list you should see an option for "Manual package selection", that lets you pick individual packages: