[LUNI] A couple of (k)ubuntu install questions

[Martin Maney]

On Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 02:59:11PM -0700, Mike Scott wrote:
> Does anyone have a simple way to get a listing of all packages installed
> un Kubuntu Linux?

dpkg --get-selections

Though you might need to filter out a few packages in states other than
"install", though those may have been the result of deferring some
updates until I was ready to reboot the machine... hmmm, still need to
do that sometime...

> I am looking for a simple text file so I can do a clean reinstall and
> not miss anything.

Then you'll probably want to know about --set-selections, too

> I have a new disc (500GB SATA) and want to partition it so I can have
> two system partitions and alternately install new versions on one for
> testing without trashing the active one (kinda like the way TiVo does
> it).

One thing to watch out for: if you use the same /home with it, you
*will* sooner or later find some app's dotfiles and/or data files
"helpfully" updated by the new version of some browser\\\\\\\
application.  Oddly, those helpful apps don't seem to have thought to
provide a way to back out that change.  ;-(

> When I install the new disc, I can just copy my home partition to the
> new drive and life should be good.
> Also, somebody mentioned dedicating most of the drive to /var, placing a
> home folder there and mounting it so that it appears in the filesystem
> as /home.  CAn this be done during install, or is it better to do a
> stock install, move home and add the mountpoint to fstab after the
> system is running?

You'd do that after install, and it might be a little tricky if you
haven't changed the default config where there's no direct login to
root.  It also sounds as though you're talking about sharing one big
/var between two "separate" system images, but maybe I misunderstand
'cause you really wouldn't want to do that...

Of the usual suspects in my world, the swap space and /tmp can be
shared between two images without any worries (unless you're going to
play around with VMs or some such using both at once); the root (of
course), /usr, /var cannot.  /home can, with the caveat that some
browsers\\\\\\\\ apps may "helpfully" update their dotfiles and even
other files while you're testing the newer release and not provide any
way to go back.  :-(

-- 
This is like making a car shorter by cutting off a few inches
from each end with a Sawzall.  Of course there's little benefit,
because that's a dumb way to do it.  -- Neil R. Ormos