dpkg, APT & Aptitude commands

Kev — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:25:36 +0000

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

Kevin Deldycke » Deb