Re: [gentoo-user] Howto generate a list of installed packages?

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Monday 28 December 2009 09:50:31 Alan E. Davis wrote:
> Season's Greetings to one and all.
> 
> I would like to be able to generate a script or list of packages of some
> kind that would enable me to install Gentoo with an identical profile of
> installed packages.  Since with Debian/Ubuntu one can run
>    dpkg --get-selections > file
> and
>    dpkg --set-selections < file
> (or some such), one imagines that the Gentoo gurus/magicians are able to do
> something similar.
> 
> It takes me months to get a new machine up to speed.  In fact, I have just
> realized I don't have tcsh installed, something I hardly EVER use, but need
> to run a one of a kind script.
> 
> Can anyone make a suggestion?  Am I missing something?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Alan Davis
> 


You already have such a thing - it's the entire contents of:

/etc/portage/*
/etc/make.conf
/etc/make.profile
/var/lib/portage/world*

Copy those files to a destination machine, adapt variable things like CHOST 
and ACCEPT_KEYWORDS to the new machine, and let portage do it's thing.

If you simply want a list of packages (sans USE flags etc), "emerge -e world" 
and parse it through your favourite text pipes (grep, sed, awk, etc) then 
redirect somewhere

If you want a list of installed packages with USE flags, "emerge -e world"

Note that these last two just give you a (mostly) human readable list. They 
are not much use to portage.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com