How about replicating an installed package list this way: dpkg –get-selections | grep ‘[[:space:]]install$’ | awk ‘{print $1}’ > packagelist.txt on the old machine, then: sudo apt-get -u install `cat packagelist.txt` on new machine, That should work. Only disadvantage is that you’d have to download the installed packages from the ‘net onto the new machine, [...]

Apt on CD looks pretty awesome for For x/k/ed/ubuntu and debian users . . . There’s got to be a way to back up all of your installed .debs without the gui, but this will be useful for most desktop users. And I like how it allows you to share the packages that you already [...]