apt-get Rolling back changes

[Dave_Bechtel]

--You need to be more specific. What broke, exactly?

--The quick-and-dirty thing to find out what was installed is to:
' ls -tl /var/cache/apt/archives |head ' (you can also pipe output to "less" instead of "head" if you have a lot of packages installed on the same day. You don't have to be root for this.)

--Post the results of that command, and maybe we can try apt-get install pkgname/stable or something.

--Usually when upgrade breaks something, Debian fixes it right away. You might try another update/upgrade a day or so after the last one, and see if it got fixed.

--Here is a script I use for updating my boxes (don't forget to chmod +x it) - #BEGIN /root/bin/updt

#!/bin/sh
apt-get update
apt-get -u upgrade
#debsort
mv -f -v ~/DEBInstalled.list ~/DEBInstalled.list.prev ; \
  dpkg -l >~/DEBInstalled.list 
updatedb &
##END

--Now whenever you get packages on your system upgraded, you can ' diff ~/DEBInstalled.list.prev ~/DEBInstalled.list ' and see what changed.

--A final note, it is a VERY good idea to start tracking what you are doing to the system. I use a file called localinfo.dat in root's home dir, and track every new package that gets installed, every pkg that gets removed, hardware upgrades, driver updates, etc. Here's an excerpt:

2003.0715 + Installed pkg (mplayer-686 w32codecs)
        - Removed mplayer-686 and compiled from source (not finding codec)
( ./configure --enable-gui --enable-largefiles --enable-vorbis --enable-xmms
--with-win32libdir=/usr/lib/win32
) -- aalib support errored out.

        ? Installed mplayer-skin--default-1.7.tar.bz2 into
          /usr/local/share/mplayer/Skin, but it's still not finding
          the win32 dlls.
        ! This is getting old REALLY fast.
        + Installed mplayer--qt6dlls.tar.bz2, mplayer--qtextras.tar.bz2

        + :) Now it works - but it keeps crashing at the end of QT videos. :(

        ++ Changed proftpd.conf for better security (ServerIdent.)

2003.0805 - Removed proftpd (conf file changed)
        + Installed pkg vsftpd
        + Restored /etc/ftpusers file (deleted when proftpd went)
        + Updated stopsvcs

        + Installed pkg bittorrent

2003.0817 + Renamed .xinitrc to .xinitrc-manual and updated .bashrc,
        since the way it was had broken plain startx

        + VNC on this box works diff than p233 - the ~/.vncrc is used here.

        + Updated NVIDIA driver to 4496.

2003.0821 + Installed mozilla-browser-snapshot with synaptic
        + Installed pkg aptitude

Hi;

I did 2-3 installs/upgrades yesterday.

Something I did changed something that broke an application I use a lot.

Is there way to get apt-get to rollback everything it did over the past day
( I don't remember everything it did )

Steve