Linux re-install, any way to re-install packages after?
 

I'm planning to re-install my Ubuntu OS ... if it's relevant, I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 on a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop, 2 GB RAM, 40 GB internal hard drive. I'm going to erase the partition Linux is on and re-install it on my external hard drive (I'm running out of room).

I know how to re-install Linux itself, but is there any way to make a list (or better yet, a GRUB code file) of all my installed packages, so that I can easily re-install them afterwards? I was going to simply look at Synaptic and write down which ones are installed, then go through and manually install them all after Linux installs, but that's going to take a while. Please note, I am not a Linux newbie but I am a bit of a GRUB newbie! Any help appreciated!

**EDIT:**
Anyone know also where the file is that contains my bookmarks for Chrome browser? I'd like to grab and save that too.

I don't use Ubuntu or Chrome, so this is a guess. The bookmarks file is presumably in your home directory, that is, /home/yourusername. Firefox keeps its user data, including bookmarks in a directory called .mozilla, so maybe .chrome? You'll have to look at your home directory. Actually, I have a couple of distributions of opensuse withe the same /home and the same user name: the bookmarks are available to both without any alteration

Thanks, but not there.
 

I found .mozilla, but neither .chrome nor .google (or anything similar) exist. I appreciate the response though!

You might check the link below for info on finding currently installed packages:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/linux...ntu-or-debian/

If that doesn't help, googling something like "ubuntu list of installed packages" should get you a number of sites. I'm not sure how Grub enters into this as that would have no relevance to package installed as it is just the bootloader?

Check the site below which explains where Chrome bookmarks are stored. I don't use Chrome so I can't verify.

http://superuser.com/questions/52428...-specific-data

It is dead simple.

To get a list of your currently installed file into a text file:
To make your new system aware of those packages:
Then run
jlinkels

Thanks, exactly the answers I was hoping for.

For me, in a somewhat different situation, chromium seems to store its bookmarks in:

home/username/.config/google-chrome/Default/Bookmarks

(which, of course, you can find with a simple

assuming that locate is installed). This is probably not quite the location that anyone would expect, so it does take a bit of poking around to spot.

In case anyone else needs to re-install, on Ubuntu 12.04 with Google Chrome (not Chromium browser, Chrome for Linux) I found the bookmarks in /home/[username]/.config/google-chrome/Default. In this folder there is a text document named "Bookmarks" which I assume is the file that I was looking for. Thanks all!