[TriLUG] Clean Ubuntu upgrade procedure?

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

Unfortunately, when I switched from Mandriva to Ubuntu 9.04 in July 2009, I 
installed 32bit Ubuntu and so limped along with 4GB instead of my hardware 8GB 
installed RAM. Ubuntu Upgrade Manager gives me the choice to upgrade in place, 
but AFAIK I can't switch to 64 bit if I use that, so I'll need to wipe the 
system and fresh-install 64bit 9.10.

Here's the problem. I've installed several hundred packages, so I'd like an 
automated way to re-install all those packages.

My thought is to find all the installed virtual packages like this:

aptitude search . | grep ^v > vpackages.sh

Then I can use Vim to tweak that file into a shellscript to install the 
virtual packages.

But I have a question: Lines beginning with v -- are they all installed, none 
of them installed, or some installed?

Then I do the same thing for lines beginning with i, which are the installed 
packages.

Does that sound like a reasonable procedure?

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt