(This question is very similar to 6338. It was suggested that it be split from it as Fedora and Ubuntu/Debian are different enough to warrant different answers.)
As I use any Fedora setup I gradually install a number of packages over and above the baseline installation. If I reinstall, or if I need to install a new machine, I usually want to reinstall those specific packages, and I want to do it fast to get back to work with a minimum of hassle. As far as I've seen all of the package managers (yum and pirut) can tell me which packages are installed, and they all have logs (albeit different ones for each tool, which is a hassle). But none of them can tell me which packages I've installed, as opposed to their dependencies or system updates. Even the logs are tricky in that I'm not entirely sure what I should be extracting from them, or how to integrate them (in the case of the various apt family tools). This means that each time I re-install, or even just backup, I'm not sure how to re-create that list.
I'm not necessarily expecting any of the tools to do this for me, but if they don't I'm looking for workarounds. Even patterns to grep for, good rules of thumb, or a clear idea of what exactly is being logged, would be useful. There may not be a "best answer" here but good ones would be very helpful.
Best Answer
yum list installedandyum.logwill show what's been installed, but I don't think anything on the system differentiates between packages you chose to install and those that were installed as dependencies