Where can I find a complete list of packages that I have installed after initial installation?

Solution 1:

Open the ISO CD image file with file-roller and extract the file:

casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop

It contains all packages that are installed after the installation.

Just keep in mind that you can also download updates and closed source software during the installation, so you'd have the check for those packages separately.

Ubuntu 12.04

In Ubuntu 12.04 the list is no longer available in a single file. Instead, you you need to unpack two files:

1. filesystem.manifest
2. filesystem.manifest-remove

and remove the packages in the latter from the former:

comm -3 <(cat filesystem.manifest | awk '{print $1}' | sort) <(cat filesystem.manifest-remove | sort) > default.txt

You can use this as basis to figure out, what has been added since the install (see this answer for details).

Solution 2:

either

sudo dpkg-query -Wf '${Installed-Size}\t${Package}\n' | sort -n

or

sudo sed -ne '/^Package: \(.*\)/{s//\1/;h;};/^Installed-Size: \(.*\)/{s//\1/;G;s/\n/ /;p;}' /var/lib/dpkg/status | sort -n

or

sudo dpkg --get-selections

will list all the packages.

Just re-route the output to a file. The 1st two lines will list it from smallest to largest with the size in front of the package name. The 3rd is in alphabetical order.