Retrieve Package List from Dead System

If you have a dead Debian Linux system and you want to recover a list of software packages that were installed, you can use this method. You can either attach the hard drive to another system, or run a live disc on the system.

Do these steps as root.

Mount the main partition of the dead system (replace sdx with the device name on your system).

mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt

Dump a package list to a file.

find /mnt/var/lib/dpkg/info/ -name "*.list"  -type f -printf "%P\n" |  awk -F'.' '{print $1}' | sort >~/packages.txt

Now you have a sorted package.txt file that you can copy to your recovery media.