apt-get and dpkg log – undo changes

Sometimes you just run a command people on websites ask you to. Well, you actually won’t do something like “rm -Rf /”, but you will follow some apt-gets for example. I did this today, and ended up with a system that did not play any video (the site was explaining to me how to convert FLV to AVI – I can’t do that yet). So, I messed it up. But how to undo the changes?

Fortunatelly, DPKG (wich apt-get uses under the hood) mantains a log of it’s works. It’s right there at /var/log/dpkg.log

Good lines to look at are those wich the first word after date/time is INSTALL. It says that you (or apt-get) requested to install that particular package.

I’m trying to undo my mess here!

~ by dante regis on June 4, 2007.

Posted in Uncategorized

3 Responses to “apt-get and dpkg log – undo changes”

Excellent. I’ve needed a solution like this for a while, but have been too lazy until now to look for one.

Thanks

Matthew said this on January 4, 2008 at 4:01 am
Perfect! I run in the same situation like you, but this must help!
Thanks!

skippy said this on January 14, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I would also give a try to http://mavior.eu/apt-log

mavior said this on February 11, 2009 at 11:38 pm