Some are applicable to any APT-based distro.

Note: To remove translations,

$ cd /etc ; echo "Acquire::Languages { \"none\"; };" > apt/apt.conf.d/99translation ; cd - >/dev/null

Note: To automatically update system essentials,

$ apt install unattended-upgrades ; dpkg-reconfigure --priority=low unattended-upgrades

To do an upgrade:

• Modify /etc/apt/sources.list and replace the release codenames

  # sed -i 's/old_release/new_release/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

  • skip -i option for a dry-run
• Update package list

  # apt update

• Upgrade distribution

  # apt dist-upgrade

• To make sure EVERYTHING is upgraded (avoids old packages held back)

  • # apt full-upgrade

• Do house cleaning

  # apt autoremove
  # apt clean

That should do it!

Using apt tool

$ apt list --installed 2>/dev/null | grep installed

Note that apt will issue a warning when piping its output in shell. Hence, the need to redirect stderr to /dev/null. We can further grep away the packages that were automatically installed.

Using the basic dpkg tool

$ dpkg --get-selections | sed -n 's/^\([^\t]*\)\t.*$/\1/ p'

This version, however, only provides package name. To extract similar output from apt (assuming output was redirected into a file called temp.txt), run

$ cat temp.txt | sed -n 's|^\(.*\)/.*$|\1| p'

Get proper signature key from that source (*.asc file) and add to system using apt-key.

# cat <key-file.asc> | apt-key add - 

Create a listing file for source URL in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/.

# echo "deb [arch=?] <new-repo-url> <version> main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/new-repo.list

After doing an apt update, should be able to apt install <pkg>…

Basically, run a dpkg-reconfigure <pkg>

e.g. To change timezone

# dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

• There is a specific tool for that

  # apt install apt-file

• Update the package/file mapping database

  # apt-file update

• Search for “top”

  # apt-file search --regexp '/top$'

• Use dry-run (simulation) option -s

  # apt install -s <pg1> ... <pkgN> 2>/dev/null|grep manually

• Removed the package(s) displayed from your install list and re-run without -s

To prevent GRUB from looking for other OS every time it is updated:

• edit /etc/default/grub and insert

  GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true

• run update-grub

To add a custom entry:

• add a menuentry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom
• uses the same menuentry format as in /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  • e.g. to boot my Slackware partition I can insert

    menuentry 'Slackware' --class slackware --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'my1part-<uuid>' {
    	insmod part_gpt
    	insmod ext2
    	set root='hd0,gpt4'
    	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
    	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt4 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt4 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt4  <uuid>
    	else
    	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 4d95a526-2518-4fd6-a904-f7bd2729145d
    	fi
    	linux /boot/vmlinuz-huge-4.4.240 root=/dev/sda4
    }

  • use initrd (after linux line) to specify an initrd/initramfs
  • of course, <uuid> should be a valid filesystem uuid
• run update-grub

If KVM group is missing, simply create one…

# [ -z "$(cat /etc/group|grep kvm)" ] && addgroup --gid 125 kvm