[CALUG] Repairing Ubuntu 8.04 installation, or installing packages to an alternate destination?

[Jason Dixon]

On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 10:05:15AM -0700, Ed Browne wrote:
>  Hi,
>     I inadvertently, tragically, uninstalled a bunch of packages on
> my Ubuntu 8.04, including some things necessary for both
> synaptic and a network connection.
>     So, short of doing a brand-new install, is there a way to
> salvage this system?  I'm booted up now on the Ubuntu 8.04
> install DVD, so can I either
> a) install the packages I need from the DVD to my hard drive,
> perhaps targeting a different relative path where I would have
> mounted my hard drive, like say "/mnt/usr" and so forth.
> or
> b) manually install the bare minimum of tools manually
> on hard drive, and put the rest packages I need on the hard 
> drive, then boot up in the hard drive and install those
> pre-positioned packages with some form of simple
> command-line package management?

What exactly are you trying to save?  If you're only concerned about
stuff in your home partition, I would think an upgrade would keep that
intact and only repair the system files and binaries.

-- 
Jason Dixon
DixonGroup Consulting
http://www.dixongroup.net/