Make a backup of the installed packages on Ubuntu like Linux Mint

Question

On the Linux mint you have a tool that list and save all your installed packages in a simple way. There is any way to do the same on Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Lubuntu/...?

Answer 1

EDIT: This is no longer a free application.

Aptik

After seeing the various answers here (and not disagreeing with any of them) it strikes me that you asked for simplicity. In my comment, I linked to an application called Aptik and I'm going to show you why I think this meets your criteria best.

Aptik is simple to install and trivially easy to use. It is also a handy dandy GUI (Graphical User Interface) that has easy to use buttons and requires absolutely no real advanced knowledge. If you can click on a button with your mouse then you can install Aptik.

If you'd like to try read more about Aptik then you can click here and visit their home page. I'm not actually sure what good that will do. Their home page doesn't seem to have a whole lot of information.

- It is Simple and it Does Work!

Not only does it do what you asked, it does a bit more. I think a screen shot should be fairly self-explanatory.

How to Install Aptik

1. Open your terminal by pressing CTRL+ALT+T.

2. Copy and Paste this to the terminal:

    sudo apt-add-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa
   

3. Press ENTER

4. Enter your password. Nothing will show on your screen, the cursor will not move, no asterisks will appear - this is normal behaviour.

5. Copy and paste this to your terminal:

    sudo apt-get update 
   

6. Press ENTER.

7. Copy and paste this to your terminal:

    sudo apt-get install aptik  
   

8. Press ENTER.

9. Allow the application to install and follow any on-screen prompts.

Running Aptik

If your computer is anything like mine then Aptik should magically appear in the Start menu. In my case, it appears under System Tools. Your case is probably not like mine. Open the launcher and search for aptik. If, for some peculiar reason, Aptik is not available then it can be launched from the terminal (use above commands) by running sudo aptik-launcher.

If, for some even stranger reason, you want to go ahead and run the application from the terminal, entirely, you can do that too but you're on your own. For the sake of completeness, this is a list of commands.

Aptik v1.6.4 by Tony George (teejee2008@gmail.com)

Syntax: aptik [options]

Options:

  --list-available      List available packages
  --list-installed      List installed packages
  --list-top            List top-level installed packages
  --list-{manual|extra} List top-level packages installed by user
  --list-default        List default packages for linux distribution
  --list-ppa            List PPAs
  --list-themes         List themes in /usr/share/themes
  --list-icons          List icon themes in /usr/share/icons
  --backup-ppa          Backup list of PPAs
  --backup-packages     Backup list of manual and installed packages
  --backup-cache        Backup downloaded packages from APT cache
  --backup-themes       Backup themes from /usr/share/themes
  --backup-icons        Backup icons from /usr/share/icons
  --restore-ppa         Restore PPAs from file 'ppa.list'
  --restore-packages    Restore packages from file 'packages.list'
  --restore-cache       Restore downloaded packages to APT cache
  --restore-themes      Restore themes to /usr/share/themes
  --restore-icons       Restore icons to /usr/share/icons
  --take-ownership      Take ownership of files in your home directory
 --backup-dir          Backup directory (defaults to current directory)
  --[show-]desc         Show package description if available
  --yes                 Assume Yes for all prompts
  --h[elp]              Show all options

Closure

Regardless of which method you choose, this has been included to ensure that there's a nice, simple, GUI way to do this. There are many ways to accomplish things in Linux and it is always nice to have options.

Answer 2

You may use APTonCD software in all Ubuntu based distros:

From Wikipedia:

APTonCD is a tool that can back up software packages (.deb files) downloaded via Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) or aptitude, creating a repository that can be used to install those packages on other computers without Internet access. APTonCD gathers the collected packages into a single ISO image

More here.

To install it, run in the terminal:

sudo apt install aptoncd

Answer 3

Try sudo dpkg --get-selections > /path/to/packagelist.txt That will have dpkg list all of the installed packages (from apt-get, and from DEB files) and output them to a text file. In this case, /path/to/packagelist.txt. Replace that with somewhere you can find it.