I know a manual way to do this, so here it goes:

• Copy the contents of /var/cache/apt/archives to a folder on your USB drive. Alternatively you could create a disc image repository using AptOnCD.


• In the file manager (Nautilus), in your home directory, display hidden folders (to do this temporarily the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+H). Folders starting with a period are the hidden folders, and contain your user preferences to the applications you use. Find the folders of the applications you want to back up (for instance .thunderbird or .wine) and copy all of those to (preferably) a different folder on your USB drive.


• Now on the computer that you wish to configure the same way as your first computer, from your USB drive copy all those Deb files into /var/cache/apt/archives (you'd have to do it as root) if you want to install them from Synaptic (it's a little nicer to do in Synaptic because if Synaptic finds a newer version of that package, it'll download it from the Internet). Alternatively you can go to that folder in the terminal (in the terminal you could do cd /media/usbdrive/debfiles/ and then running sudo dpkg -i *.deb to install all those deb files. You may want to go into Synaptic afterwards to make sure you don't have any missing packages to install.


• Lastly, copy those folders starting with a period into your new home directory. If there was already a folder there, you could delete it first (make sure that application is closed). For instance while Thunderbird isn't running, delete .thunderbird in your home directory and copy over .thunderbird from your USB drive.

That should provide you with a quick installation (well you save on download time) of all the software you use and a quick importation of your user configuration of those applications. Enjoy.