- List all installed packages:
dpkg -l
- List all recently installed packages:
zcat -f /var/log/dpkg.log* | grep "\ install\ " | sort
- Install a package from a lower-priority repository, like the backport repository:
apt-get -t squeeze-backports install my-package
- Force reinstallation of a package:
apt-get -d --reinstall install my-package
dpkg --install --force-confmiss /var/cache/apt/archives/my-package.deb
- Clean aptitude local cache:
apt-get clean
- Uninstall a package throughly (both program files and configuration):
apt-get remove --purge my_package
- Force removal of a package while ignoring all dependencies:
dpkg --remove --force-depends libsomething
- Remove orphaned pakages:
deborphan | xargs apt-get -y remove --purge
- Show the changelog of a package (here, the linux kernel of Ubuntu):
aptitude changelog linux-generic
- Which package contain a given file:
apt-file search file_to_search
- Get the list of files of a package:
apt-file list package_name
- Remove
dpkg lock file:
rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
- Hold a package with either
dpkg or aptitude:
echo "kdenlive hold" | dpkg --set-selections
aptitude hold kdenlive
- Unhold a package:
echo "kdenlive install" | dpkg --set-selections
aptitude unhold kdenlive
- List holded packages:
dpkg --get-selections | grep hold
is also an interesting feature. It purges obsolete package cache.
@djib: thanks for the tip ! Actually I delegate all these tasks to cron-apt. If you don’t know it, you should give it a chance: it really save you time.
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