Hi, I know that you can get a complete list of things installed on a system with dpkg --get-selections, and can set those to be installed on another system with dpkg --set-selections. Is there, however, a way to extract from an _old_ /var/lib/dpkg/ tree the same output as one would get on a working system.
I have a system whose root partition died part way through an incremental backup cycle. I'm afraid the "full" increment was spaced too far, because I'd made a number of changes to the system in the few days before the hard drive died (yes, I know, I should have done a full backup then. I didn't have any more time for the machine then than I do now, though). I _think_ the /var partition is still good (or good enough to get some data off, anyway), and that I might be able to get my package selections back more easily that way than from the incremental backups. Will this work? A -- Andrew Sullivan Computer Services <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Burlington Public Library +1 905 639 3611 x158 2331 New Street Burlington, Ontario, Canada L7R 1J4