Getting a list of applications and packages on my Fedora machine !?

[Tom Horsley]

On Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:19:14 -0500
William Case wrote:

> I think I remember reading a suggestion here about how to get a list of
> the main or core programs on my machine.

I use this command to get just the names and architecture
of rpms installed, leaving out the specific version numbers
which makes it harder to compare:

rpm -q --qf "%{NAME}.%{ARCH}\n" -a | sort > list.txt

If you do that on both the old and new, you can then
use tools like:

comm -13 old.txt new.txt

To find just the things installed on "old" that are
not installed in "new".

It is important to note that the comm output will include
stuff that is obsolete on the new (like things no longer
needed on f16 because of the switch to systemd, etc), so
you can't just blindly install everything in that list,
but it is a starting place.

I am now trying to remember to save that list immediately
after I do a clean install so that when I'm ready to do
another install in 6 months, I'll be able to compare current
contents to original clean install contents and deduce
what optional stuff I installed after the clean install.