Okay, Debian gurus... a challenge.
Randy Edwards
redwards at golgotha.net
Fri Jan 9 18:03:47 EST 2004
To be frank, I'm not sure if apt-get has such a switch. But I can give
some strategies of how to tackle this.
> anyone give me the apt-get-command-from-hell that would examine all the
> packages currently installed, and either
> a) re-install their /usr/lib files, or, failing that,
I don't think that will be possible...
> b) re-install all their non-config files, or, failing _that_,
...nor that...
> c) re-install _all_ their files (I have a backup of all config data,
> so it's not like I'd be starting from scratch).
But this is a lock. Don't worry about your configuration data --
remember, this is Debian. :-) If you've modified config files, dpkg will
detect the modifications when it runs and will prompt you whether you want
to install the new config file, keep the old config file, do a shell, or do
a diff of the two config files. Thus, your config data should be safe.
Hopefully someone will chime in and educate us both about a magic switch
which will do what you want. But if not, here's a couple of ideas that
might be helpful.
Visit /var/lib/dpkg/info. Do a grep on the *.list files in that
directory searching for /usr/lib. The list files (in the format of
PackageName.list) will tell you each PackageName that put files into
/usr/lib. That should allow you to just download only the packages that put
files into /usr/lib. Once downloaded, then you can just put those package
names into a file and do a series of "apt-get install --reinstall
PackageName" to install them, and, of course, answer prompts about the
modified config files.
If you want to reinstall everything and avoid the grep method above,
then run a man on dpkg and look at its get and set selections option. While
this isn't ideal for the situation you're in, IMHO, anyone running Debian
should do a "get-selection" and redirect it into a file just in case of
something bizarre happening.
Doh!! I typed all of that for nothing. :-)
I forget sometimes that I run the www.DebianHelp.org site. I just did a
search on that and what do you know, another user had the same problem. Do
a couple of searches on the site, or visit this link
<http://www.debianhelp.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2096>
but this snippet of untested code looks promising:
apt-get install --reinstall `ls /var/lib/dpkg/info | grep '.list$' | sed -e
's/.list$//g'`
With those tips, you should be ready to really screw things up. :-)
--
Regards, | "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket
. | fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who
Randy | hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not
| clothed." -- US President Dwight D. Eisenhower
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