wiki.mbirth.de/know-how/software/linux/_posts/2010-03-24-sync-package-list.md

created	layout	layout_old	redirect_to	tags	title	toc	updated
2010-03-23 17:53:30 +0100	redirect	default	https://blog.mbirth.de/archives/2010/03/23/sync-package-list-between-2-pcs.html	know-how software linux administration	Sync Package List between 2 PCs	false	2010-03-24 10:39:37 +0100

To export a list of all installed packages, you can use the following command:

sudo dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt

But this will loose any {A} markers for automatically installed packages and therefore produce a lot of garbage when dependencies change.

To export only manually installed packages, use aptitude like this:

sudo aptitude search '~i!~M' -F '%p install' > selections.txt

(More aptitude filterstrings can be found on their project page.)

On the other machine, use the following command to set the new markers:

sudo dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt

Now run aptitude and resolve the dependencies.