Ubuntu: Re-install All Packages
After some transient disk issues I was stuck with an Ubuntu VMWare image that was brain dead. I figured I would give the install CD a chance to fix but the Ubuntu install CD doesn’t have a fix-it option. (Really?!) Since the issue was somewhere in how Gnome and X were configured, I launched an xterm session and managed this command:
dpkg --get-selections \* | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -l1 aptitude reinstall
What that does is get a list of all packages installed on a system, then invoke “reinstall” for each package. It took a few hours to run.
The Ubuntu forums had a recipe using some more straightforward Debian incantation, but that didn’t work for me.
Responses
Anonymous
Year old post, but I’m assuming that worked for you then?
Daniel Howard
That it did, aye.
Some
it worked for me, i just doing it now!
Some
this my also work in the case of a fresh install, you save all the packages in a file, and call it from there in your fresh installation.
guest
awesome trick, if you saw my bash script to do the same you’d laugh! saved me after invoking a nice rsync command which started deleting everything in my HD :D
ylk
“After some transient disk issues I was stuck with an Ubuntu VMWare image that was brain dead.”
Did reinstalling all installed packages fix the VMWare image problem? I ask because
I’m having a similar problem (but with VirtualBox image) after my root (/) partition ran low on disk space.
ylk
Is the kernel included?
Comment
Tiny Print:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>