I commonly install/remove a bunch of software after installing Ubuntu, I wonder about the methods to automate it.
Is anything like /etc/apt/packages where I could define which packages I want?
Pressed configuration files work on initial setup, however I'd like it to work regardless of the status of the system.
You can use any file for that. Just create a file packages in your home folder. List there all the needed packages and install them by
cat packages | xargs sudo apt-get install
or
xargs -a packages sudo apt-get install
The same way you can remove or purge a list of packages.
The list may look like
vlc
ubuntu-restricted-extras
mc
You can use a kickstart script and pxe boot with puppet and it will be completely configured auto-magically on first boot. Completely hands off.
