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Is there a way, that I could backup all my programs, all apps, put them in a directory or something, so that I could install them quickly next time, without having to manually going over the app center, downloading them from terminal, etc?

Note that I might import them from a distro other than the one I exported them on. So, say I'm in Ubuntu, exported some stuff, and then installed BT and wanted to import them from there.

Jorge Castro
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VeXe
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5 Answers5

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When I have to format my Ubuntu I follow this steps:

  1. dpkg --get-selections > package_list This creates a text file (package_list) with all package installed in your system. You can edit the file if you want to delete some packages.
  2. Backup /etc/apt/sources.list file and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ folder. Here there are all the repositories.
  3. Backup /home/MyUser folder. All application settings are hide folders/files in your user's home folder, maybe you want to select what settings you want to restore.
  4. Format and install new Ubuntu.
  5. Restore your repositories (/etc/apt/sources.list file and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ folder).
  6. sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
  7. sudo dpkg --clear-selections and sudo dpkg --set-selections < package_list. To restore the information of your installed packages.
  8. Install them: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade
  9. Finally, sudo apt-get autoremove to clean some packages.

Well, there are 9 steps, but you have an easy Ubuntu clean install.

Another solution is to mantain a list with your installed applications, then sudo apt-get install app-name (you can create a bash script).

ilazgo
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  • @lago Is it possible to avoid default installed applications. As an example firefox is default installed, and vlc is not. So next when i will install system only install vlc. – shantanu Oct 31 '13 at 12:26
  • @shantanu for do that you have to build your own Ubuntu image. There are some software that helps you. Search in Google or ask another question :) – ilazgo Oct 31 '13 at 13:09
  • @lago sorry for my bad explanation. Actually i mean that, A fresh installed ubuntu has firefox installed. Now i install vlc. Lets get package list. There should be two package, firefox and vlc. Now i want to install fresh ubuntu again. Want to restore my packages. dpkg --set-selection < package_list. dpkg will run for firefox and vlc. But i don't need firefox, only vlc which is not installed by default (in fresh ubuntu). – shantanu Oct 31 '13 at 21:22
  • @shantanu well, for that, you have to get an empty Ubuntu image (and then install all what you want), or you have to do a sudo apt-get remove --purge firefox for every package you want to unninstall. Yo can do that in a bash script. – ilazgo Nov 04 '13 at 07:25
  • How exactly do you do the back up steps in your question? I'm using back in time but some people reported that back in time on the fresh machine can't easily find the old snapshots. The settings of back in time has to be exactly the same, and I can only restore on folder at a time. – Heisenberg Nov 17 '13 at 18:42
  • @Anh the back up consists in install from zero your software (previously, you make a list of your installed software) and copy/paste your configuration. – ilazgo Nov 18 '13 at 16:01
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    For future reader: I took a leap of faith and did the reinstallation yesterday. The part where I "export" then "import" list of installed software went without hitch. The "back up home folder" part went nicely because I configured my laptop exactly like before. Some people reported that back in time snapshot may not recognize old snapshots if the account / permission configuration is not exactly the same. – Heisenberg Nov 18 '13 at 21:02
  • When I run sudo dpkg --set-selections < package.list I get an epically long list of packages that are "not in database" including things like vlc and postgresl-9.5. I'm rather confused – raphael Jul 02 '16 at 22:01
  • Found the answer here. sudo apt-get install dselect sudo dselect update – raphael Jul 02 '16 at 23:34
  • I know this is a little late, but I wanted to thank you for the response, that is a great idea. I do want to add a couple of things to it that will make it even more seamless. When you install Ubuntu and decide to do a manual partition, you can create a /home partition that will be mounted as /home. Once you have that, you can just copy the files from the /etc directory as suggested in this answer and run those commands while preserving the data in the /home partition. – Hatem Jaber Apr 17 '18 at 16:40
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@ilazgo's answer right on point!!Thank you. I used a slightly different format due to the problem I had at hand. Mine involved moving an encrypted home folder from a disk image I had initially created to the current home folder. Using @ilazgo's solution in addition to rsync options source destination, I was able to merge the two. Another solution can be found Here

nyaga_githinji
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If you in apt environment:

  • sudo apt install apt-clone
  • Backup your packages sudo apt-clone clone ~/my-backup-packages
  • sudo apt-clone restore-new-distro my-backup-packages.tar.gz for restore a clone file from to and try upgrading along the way. this can be used so that the current release is cloned, a new install is done and then the old clone is installed.

Carefully: restore overwrite sources.list see how-to-backup-settings-and-list-of-installed-packages for solution.

As wrote @raphael it is duplicate how-to-backup-settings-and-list-of-installed-packages

C2RLOS
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For versions up to 15.04, Aptik is a nice GUI method of backing up to a remote drive and restoring everything with a few clicks of the mouse.

It's available in the PPAs.

Christopher
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Aptik is something you could look into

http://www.unixmen.com/aptik-backup-ppas-themes-icons-application-settings-ubuntu/

Piyush Raja
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    Although your answer is 100% correct, it might also become 100% useless if that link is moved, changed, merged into another one or the main site just disappears... :-( Therefore, please [edit] your answer, and copy the relevant steps from the link into your answer, thereby guaranteeing your answer for 100% of the lifetime of this site! ;-) You can always leave the link in at the bottom of your answer as a source for your material... – Fabby Aug 31 '15 at 19:29