[Solved] Is there some way to feed the contents of a text file into "apt-get install"?

[TryingOutDebian]

I have a simple txt file that is just a plain list of all the Debian packages which I've installed manually, mainly to make it easier for me to rebuild my system if I should lose it somehow. I'd like to be able to install all the packages on that list with a simple command. Now, the easy way to do that is to open the text file, copy the entire content, then type "sudo apt-get install" in a terminal and paste what I just copied afterwards. And that is how I've done it so far. But that means using a really long command. So I'm wondering if there could be a shorter command to do that.

I've tried

sudo cat NameOfTheFile.txt | apt-get install

but that doesn't work. That is, I always get told that there are zero packages to install, even if I intentionally removed one of the packages in order to test the thing.

Any ideas?

[sunrat]

Try

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xargs sudo apt -y install < NameOfTheFile.txt

Note: edited to add xargs which is needed to read the file from standard input.

[None1975]

Hello.

For this purpose you can try make script.

For example:

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#!/bin/bash

# Install packages after installing base Debian with no GUI

# xorg display server installation and wm
sudo apt install -y xorg xterm

#Spectrwm
sudo apt install -y spectrwm sxhkd

#Other stuff
sudo apt install -y mate-terminal stterm xautolock dunst libnotify-bin sxiv


# Microcode for Intel/AMD
sudo apt install -y firmware-linux-nonfree firmware-realtek

# File Manager (eg. pcmanfm,krusader)
sudo apt install -y micro emacs w3m mc  ranger gvfs gvfs-backends thunar

# Network File Tools/System Events
sudo apt install -y dialog mtools dosfstools avahi-daemon

sudo systemctl enable avahi-daemon

# Neofetch/HTOP
sudo apt install -y neofetch htop lm-sensors smartmontools

# Various utilities
sudo apt install -y imagemagick scrot i3lock-fancy breeze-gtk-theme gnome-icon-theme rar unrar p7zip-full p7zip-rar zip unzip lxappearance

# Printing and bluetooth (if needed)
sudo apt install -y cups
sudo systemctl enable cups

# Browser and Mail client Installation (eg. chromium)
sudo apt install -y firefox-esr firefox-esr-l10n-ru thunderbird thunderbird-l10n-ru

# Aditional packages
sudo apt install -y zathura zathura-djvu  simple-scan preload

# Install fonts
sudo apt install -y fonts-font-awesome fonts-ubuntu fonts-liberation2 fonts-liberation xfonts-terminus fonts-jetbrains-mono

#Music and video packages
sudo apt install -y mpv sox libsox-fmt-all alsa-utils pulseaudio pavucontrol cmus weechat

#Torrents
sudo apt install -y qbittorrent aria2 keepassxc seahorse gpa mat2

#Install Office packages
sudo apt install -y libreoffice libreoffice-gtk3 libreoffice-l10n-ru gimp

#Network
sudo apt install -y network-manager

#Nvidia
sudo apt install -y linux-headers-amd64 

sudo apt install -y nvidia-driver

sudo apt autoremove

printf "\e[1;32mYou can now reboot! Thanks you.\e[0m\n"

Just don't forget to make this script executable with command

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chmod +x 

P.S.

You can name this file for example install.sh

[fabien]

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$> cat /tmp/pkglist
isc-dhcp-client hello
dhcpcd-base

You can do

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#> apt-get -sV install $(cat /tmp/pkglist)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
dhcpcd-base is already the newest version (9.4.1-24~deb12u2).
Suggested packages:
   resolvconf (1.91+nmu1)
   avahi-autoipd (0.8-10)
   isc-dhcp-client-ddns (4.4.3-P1-2)
The following NEW packages will be installed:
   hello (2.10-3)
   isc-dhcp-client (4.4.3-P1-2)
   isc-dhcp-common (4.4.3-P1-2)
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Inst isc-dhcp-client (4.4.3-P1-2 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Inst isc-dhcp-common (4.4.3-P1-2 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Inst hello (2.10-3 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Conf isc-dhcp-client (4.4.3-P1-2 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Conf isc-dhcp-common (4.4.3-P1-2 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Conf hello (2.10-3 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])

The problem is that the arguments are not protected. This may seem almost theoretical or anecdotal in your case, but still. For exemple, if you use '*' in your package list as regular expression (for instance isc-dhcp.*) it can be subject to pathname expansion (glob).
A safer way is to populate an array. Arrays can be protected.

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#> declare -a MYPKGLIST    ### declare that MYPKGLIST is an array (optional, bash sets this attribute automatically when a variable is used as an array)

#> read -d '' -ra MYPKGLIST < <(cat /tmp/pkglist)     ### populates the array. The list in /tmp/pkglist can be space separated or new line separated, or both

#> declare -p MYPKGLIST   ### if you want to see the content of the array
declare -a MYPKGLIST=([0]="isc-dhcp-client" [1]="hello" [2]="dhcpcd-base")

#> apt-get -sV install "${MYPKGLIST[@]}"     ### the arguments are protected
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
dhcpcd-base is already the newest version (9.4.1-24~deb12u2).
Suggested packages:
   resolvconf (1.91+nmu1)
   avahi-autoipd (0.8-10)
   isc-dhcp-client-ddns (4.4.3-P1-2)
The following NEW packages will be installed:
   hello (2.10-3)
   isc-dhcp-client (4.4.3-P1-2)
   isc-dhcp-common (4.4.3-P1-2)
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Inst isc-dhcp-client (4.4.3-P1-2 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Inst isc-dhcp-common (4.4.3-P1-2 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Inst hello (2.10-3 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Conf isc-dhcp-client (4.4.3-P1-2 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Conf isc-dhcp-common (4.4.3-P1-2 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])
Conf hello (2.10-3 Debian:12.2/stable [amd64])

[TryingOutDebian]

Thank you, everyone! Especially fabien- your

#> apt-get -sV install $(cat /tmp/pkglist)

is the one that works best for me for this. There's no * in the list file, so no need to worry about that.

[CwF]

I'm wondering if the package 'dselect' would be useful for this?

[sunrat]

Thanks to @fabien who actually tested my suggestion above. The command requires xargs to read the file from standard input. I tested it this time and it works.

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xargs sudo apt -y install < NameOfTheFile.txt

[ab1jx]

I did something like this once, take a look at the --recursive option to dpkg. You can do dpkg -ir with a list and it handles it quite well. You can reconstruct a machine or copy one, even email a list to someone remote.

[cds60601]

If you are adventurous and using either testing or sid, there is apt-clone

[jmgibson1981]

I'm wondering if the package 'dselect' would be useful for this?

I've tried numerous times to use the dselect method to restore packages on a fresh installation. Either I got it wrong every single time or the instructions I found are not 100% accurate. I haven't gotten it to work once. I end up processing the file to remove all but the package names then do the

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apt install $(cat /file)

method.