How can I backup my programs/applications, so that after I reinstall a new one, I can still use the backup-ed ones?
When I have to format my Ubuntu I follow this steps:
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.- Backup
/etc/apt/sources.list
file and/etc/apt/sources.list.d/
folder. Here there are all the repositories. - 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. - Format and install new Ubuntu.
- Restore your repositories (
/etc/apt/sources.list
file and/etc/apt/sources.list.d/
folder). sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo dpkg --clear-selections
andsudo dpkg --set-selections < package_list
. To restore the information of your installed packages.- Install them:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade
- 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).