Read full dpkg database state without dpkg program
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
From a Live USB, and without using the installed Ubuntu's programs like dpkg
, dpkg-query
, dselect
, aptitude
, apt-get
, or any other (as they are all broken Illegal instruction
), how do I read the package lists that apt
reads, as a list in order to catalogue the installed packages, to reinstall later?
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
where is local package database? is almost a perfect answer:
/var/lib/dpkg/status
is modified by dpkg if you change the state of a package, i.e. install it, remove it, mark it for some action, ...
I don't want just to list "changed" packages, but also depended packages, the entire state of the system, etc. Is that contained by
dpkg/status
?
- On another healthy system, that file has ~3800
Package:
entries; on the target system it has 3600Package:
entries, and on the Live USB it has only 2000 entries. That sounds right except I worry it doesn't list all the packages.
- On another healthy system, that file has ~3800
I am not looking for the downloaded
.deb
cache, nor thecache
fordpkg
/apt
which holds temporary data files -- these do not give the full system state./var/lib/apt/lists
seems to contain a list of package sources and packages, which is almost perfect except a lot of parsing is involved in getting a list of package names from it. Is this the best option?
The file /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin
exists but since it's a generated binary, I don't think copying it to a fresh install will be sufficient.
apt package-management software-installation dpkg
add a comment |
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
From a Live USB, and without using the installed Ubuntu's programs like dpkg
, dpkg-query
, dselect
, aptitude
, apt-get
, or any other (as they are all broken Illegal instruction
), how do I read the package lists that apt
reads, as a list in order to catalogue the installed packages, to reinstall later?
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
where is local package database? is almost a perfect answer:
/var/lib/dpkg/status
is modified by dpkg if you change the state of a package, i.e. install it, remove it, mark it for some action, ...
I don't want just to list "changed" packages, but also depended packages, the entire state of the system, etc. Is that contained by
dpkg/status
?
- On another healthy system, that file has ~3800
Package:
entries; on the target system it has 3600Package:
entries, and on the Live USB it has only 2000 entries. That sounds right except I worry it doesn't list all the packages.
- On another healthy system, that file has ~3800
I am not looking for the downloaded
.deb
cache, nor thecache
fordpkg
/apt
which holds temporary data files -- these do not give the full system state./var/lib/apt/lists
seems to contain a list of package sources and packages, which is almost perfect except a lot of parsing is involved in getting a list of package names from it. Is this the best option?
The file /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin
exists but since it's a generated binary, I don't think copying it to a fresh install will be sufficient.
apt package-management software-installation dpkg
add a comment |
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
From a Live USB, and without using the installed Ubuntu's programs like dpkg
, dpkg-query
, dselect
, aptitude
, apt-get
, or any other (as they are all broken Illegal instruction
), how do I read the package lists that apt
reads, as a list in order to catalogue the installed packages, to reinstall later?
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
where is local package database? is almost a perfect answer:
/var/lib/dpkg/status
is modified by dpkg if you change the state of a package, i.e. install it, remove it, mark it for some action, ...
I don't want just to list "changed" packages, but also depended packages, the entire state of the system, etc. Is that contained by
dpkg/status
?
- On another healthy system, that file has ~3800
Package:
entries; on the target system it has 3600Package:
entries, and on the Live USB it has only 2000 entries. That sounds right except I worry it doesn't list all the packages.
- On another healthy system, that file has ~3800
I am not looking for the downloaded
.deb
cache, nor thecache
fordpkg
/apt
which holds temporary data files -- these do not give the full system state./var/lib/apt/lists
seems to contain a list of package sources and packages, which is almost perfect except a lot of parsing is involved in getting a list of package names from it. Is this the best option?
The file /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin
exists but since it's a generated binary, I don't think copying it to a fresh install will be sufficient.
apt package-management software-installation dpkg
From a Live USB, and without using the installed Ubuntu's programs like dpkg
, dpkg-query
, dselect
, aptitude
, apt-get
, or any other (as they are all broken Illegal instruction
), how do I read the package lists that apt
reads, as a list in order to catalogue the installed packages, to reinstall later?
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
where is local package database? is almost a perfect answer:
/var/lib/dpkg/status
is modified by dpkg if you change the state of a package, i.e. install it, remove it, mark it for some action, ...
I don't want just to list "changed" packages, but also depended packages, the entire state of the system, etc. Is that contained by
dpkg/status
?
- On another healthy system, that file has ~3800
Package:
entries; on the target system it has 3600Package:
entries, and on the Live USB it has only 2000 entries. That sounds right except I worry it doesn't list all the packages.
- On another healthy system, that file has ~3800
I am not looking for the downloaded
.deb
cache, nor thecache
fordpkg
/apt
which holds temporary data files -- these do not give the full system state./var/lib/apt/lists
seems to contain a list of package sources and packages, which is almost perfect except a lot of parsing is involved in getting a list of package names from it. Is this the best option?
The file /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin
exists but since it's a generated binary, I don't think copying it to a fresh install will be sufficient.
apt package-management software-installation dpkg
apt package-management software-installation dpkg
asked Dec 1 at 5:00
cat
8911238
8911238
add a comment |
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1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
See man dpkg
:
The other files listed below are in their default directories, see
option--admindir
to see how to change locations of these files.
/var/lib/dpkg/available
List of available packages.
/var/lib/dpkg/status
Statuses of available packages.
This file contains information about whether a package is marked for
removing or not, whether it is installed or not, etc. See section
INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES for more info. The status file is backed up
daily in/var/backups
. It can be useful if it's lost or corrupted due
to filesystems troubles.
You can quit worrying. If the package isn't in status
, dpkg
doesn't know about it. At all.
By the way, the "package lists" that apt is taking about is a different thing: those are the lists it downloaded from the sources in /etc/apt/sources.list
, etc. and are in /var/lib/apt/lists
. These contain information about packages in the repositories, and have nothing about the local system.
About your current problem, you can use the live system's dpkg
to read that file, using the --admindir
option mentioned above.
add a comment |
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1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
See man dpkg
:
The other files listed below are in their default directories, see
option--admindir
to see how to change locations of these files.
/var/lib/dpkg/available
List of available packages.
/var/lib/dpkg/status
Statuses of available packages.
This file contains information about whether a package is marked for
removing or not, whether it is installed or not, etc. See section
INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES for more info. The status file is backed up
daily in/var/backups
. It can be useful if it's lost or corrupted due
to filesystems troubles.
You can quit worrying. If the package isn't in status
, dpkg
doesn't know about it. At all.
By the way, the "package lists" that apt is taking about is a different thing: those are the lists it downloaded from the sources in /etc/apt/sources.list
, etc. and are in /var/lib/apt/lists
. These contain information about packages in the repositories, and have nothing about the local system.
About your current problem, you can use the live system's dpkg
to read that file, using the --admindir
option mentioned above.
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
See man dpkg
:
The other files listed below are in their default directories, see
option--admindir
to see how to change locations of these files.
/var/lib/dpkg/available
List of available packages.
/var/lib/dpkg/status
Statuses of available packages.
This file contains information about whether a package is marked for
removing or not, whether it is installed or not, etc. See section
INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES for more info. The status file is backed up
daily in/var/backups
. It can be useful if it's lost or corrupted due
to filesystems troubles.
You can quit worrying. If the package isn't in status
, dpkg
doesn't know about it. At all.
By the way, the "package lists" that apt is taking about is a different thing: those are the lists it downloaded from the sources in /etc/apt/sources.list
, etc. and are in /var/lib/apt/lists
. These contain information about packages in the repositories, and have nothing about the local system.
About your current problem, you can use the live system's dpkg
to read that file, using the --admindir
option mentioned above.
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
See man dpkg
:
The other files listed below are in their default directories, see
option--admindir
to see how to change locations of these files.
/var/lib/dpkg/available
List of available packages.
/var/lib/dpkg/status
Statuses of available packages.
This file contains information about whether a package is marked for
removing or not, whether it is installed or not, etc. See section
INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES for more info. The status file is backed up
daily in/var/backups
. It can be useful if it's lost or corrupted due
to filesystems troubles.
You can quit worrying. If the package isn't in status
, dpkg
doesn't know about it. At all.
By the way, the "package lists" that apt is taking about is a different thing: those are the lists it downloaded from the sources in /etc/apt/sources.list
, etc. and are in /var/lib/apt/lists
. These contain information about packages in the repositories, and have nothing about the local system.
About your current problem, you can use the live system's dpkg
to read that file, using the --admindir
option mentioned above.
See man dpkg
:
The other files listed below are in their default directories, see
option--admindir
to see how to change locations of these files.
/var/lib/dpkg/available
List of available packages.
/var/lib/dpkg/status
Statuses of available packages.
This file contains information about whether a package is marked for
removing or not, whether it is installed or not, etc. See section
INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES for more info. The status file is backed up
daily in/var/backups
. It can be useful if it's lost or corrupted due
to filesystems troubles.
You can quit worrying. If the package isn't in status
, dpkg
doesn't know about it. At all.
By the way, the "package lists" that apt is taking about is a different thing: those are the lists it downloaded from the sources in /etc/apt/sources.list
, etc. and are in /var/lib/apt/lists
. These contain information about packages in the repositories, and have nothing about the local system.
About your current problem, you can use the live system's dpkg
to read that file, using the --admindir
option mentioned above.
answered Dec 1 at 5:22
muru
135k19289491
135k19289491
add a comment |
add a comment |
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