I am considering change from leap 15.3 to tumbleweed. I have hundreds of apps installed above the basic system install for leap 15.3. I wish to facilitate the conversion and get system to where it was before conversion.
From another thread I started, “How to convert from leap 15.3 to TW and keep installed apps”, I am concluding that there is no automated way to convert over to TW and retain the addons (or their new equivalents) I have installed.
As a fallback, how might I generate a list of what addons I have installed beyond the basic leap 15.3 system package. Another list might be, if possible to generate, what I have added on compared with the basic tumbleweed system package.
With these list(s), it would be easy to install the needed addons very quickly with Yast software manager. Might be some tinkering needed by should go pretty quickly.
Anyone have any idea of how to generate the “delta” list of addons over basic system packages for leap 15.3?
I am afraid that there is no real base whereupon you can create such a list.
During installation a selection is offered based on (of course) some minimum, but also on choices you made during the installation, like which desktop environment, and upon hardware found, and last but not least on changes you made to the list offered before you fired the real installation process. So even what is installed during initial installation is not a fixed list for every system and every installation.
One might think that using a history of installed packages could then be inspected on installation date and everything installed after the installation date/time might be the extras you want to know about. But that list will have to be filtered out by those installations that were done again (because of patches/updates) after initial installation. Also, when the system was installed many years ago and during time underwent upgrades from openSUSE version to openSUSE version (where packages might be replaced by different packages, or newer versions of installed packages might now draw in new dependancies), the confusion of interpreting such list might grow beyond understanding.
The only thing that IMHO might help here, is a list of installed packages at this moment, to be compaired with a list of the same of the new installed system. And then check if the differences trigger you in saying: Hey I need that one also.
I have no doubt it is possible to create such a list using zypper. Personaly , I run on all my systems a weekly
on which one may of course vary in what to see and how to format the output (in my case this output is converted in an HTML table with column divider on the place of the :.
And my solution to your problem will come as hindsight to you. Whenever you add an application to your system, make a note about the packages you installed. Either in a document on the system, but good old paper and pencil is also not a bad medium IMHO.
But I know, documenting is not only a weak point in programmers, also in system managers. >:)
I really appreciate your comprehensive answer to my query. I have no recollection of what options I used during install, including the DE. I’ve added multiple DEs since then. I think I can’t recreate the initial list from which to determine the “addons”. I think it is not possible to do what I was hoping.
I did see many threads on options in zypper to search installed packages and what repos they came from, etc… I appreciate your install log generation command using rpm.
I am still thinking about converting to tumbleweed. If I do, I will just have to install the “addons” as needs arise. I was just trying to reduce the time commitment on converting.