Karin Chan

How To List Packages From A PPA / Repository In Ubuntu

<div style="text-align: justify;">A few weeks ago, we saw how to find out <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/how-to-find-out-to-which-ppa-repository.html">to which PPA / repository a package belongs to</a> in Ubuntu / Debian. But how about getting a list of packages available in a PPA / repository?</div><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><h3>Synaptic</h3><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">To get a list of packages available in a PPA / repository enabled on your system (if the repository is disabled or not added on your system, it won't show up here), firstly install Synaptic if you haven't already:</div><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install synaptic</code></pre><br />(or install <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/12/how-to-install-synaptic-with-gtk3.html">Synaptic GTK3</a>)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Then <b>open Synaptic, select "Origin" on the bottom left, then select a PPA or repository on the left and it should list all packages in that PPA / repository for your Ubuntu version, both installed and not installed:</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/synaptic-origin.png" rel="image_group" title="List packages in repositories with Synaptic"><img alt="Synaptic origin" src="http://img.netupd8.com/synaptic-origin_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In the latest Synaptic built with GTK3, there are two entries for each PPA here, one that uses "/now" at the end, which displays the packages you've installed from a repository and another one which displays all the packages available in that repository.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Important:</b> if the exact same package (including the package version) exists in two or more PPAs / repositories, it will only be listed for one repository entry in Synaptic. That's why I've added other ways of doing this (see below), which list all the packages, even if the package exists in other PPAs / repositories.</div><br /><br /><br /><h3>Command line</h3><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>You can also do this using a command like the one below, but this will only list the package names, without any additional info (no version, description, etc.):</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>awk '$1 == "Package:" { if (a[$2]++ == 0) print $2; }' /var/lib/apt/lists/*<b>PPA-FIRST-PART</b>*<b>PPA-SECOND-PART</b>*Packages</code></pre><br />where "PPA-FIRST-PART" is the first part of a PPA, e.g. for the ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 PPA, "PPA-FIRST-PART" is "nilarimogard" and "PPA-SECOND-PART" is "webupd8".<br /><br />Let's try it out:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>awk '$1 == "Package:" { if (a[$2]++ == 0) print $2; }' /var/lib/apt/lists/*nilarimogard*webupd8*Packages</code></pre><br />And here's the terminal output:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/list-packages-terminal.png" rel="image_group" title="Get a list of packages in a repository from the command line"><img alt="list packages ppa terminal" src="http://img.netupd8.com/list-packages-terminal_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">(I've tweaked the original command - see the credits -, to remove duplicate lines which would occur on 64bit systems with multi-arch support).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This works for regular repositories too, e.g. to see all the packages available in the proposed repository:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>awk '$1 == "Package:" { if (a[$2]++ == 0) print $2; }' /var/lib/apt/lists/*proposed*Packages</code></pre><br />Or, to see the packages available in the security multiverse repository:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>awk '$1 == "Package:" { if (a[$2]++ == 0) print $2; }' /var/lib/apt/lists/*security*multiverse*Packages</code></pre><br /><br /><br /><h3>Using Y PPA Manager</h3><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/10/y-ppa-manager-0092-released-with-new.html">Y PPA Manager</a>, a small application I've created, can list all the packages available in each PPA added on your system. It doesn't work with regular repositories (just Launchpad PPAs) though and the PPA needs to be enabled on your system for this to work. So it's not perfect. </div><br />But there are advantages over Synaptic / the command above:<br /><ul><li>unlike Synaptic, it lists all the packages in a PPA, even if the exact same package (exact version) is available in multiple PPAs;</li><li>unlike the command above, Y PPA Manager displays the package version next to the package name.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/y-ppa-manager-list-packages.png" rel="image_group" title="List all the packages in a PPA using Y PPA Manager"><img alt="List packages PPA Y PPA Manager" src="http://img.netupd8.com/y-ppa-manager-list-packages_thumb.png" /></a></div><br />To lists all the packages in a PPA, install Y PPA Manager:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Then launch Y PPA Manager, double click "Manage PPAs", select the PPA and click "List packages". </b></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>some info via <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/43581/how-to-list-packages-from-a-ppa-source-in-command-line">AskUbuntu</a> & <a href="http://usemoslinux.blogspot.com/2012/11/como-listar-los-paquetes-dentro-de-un.html">UsemosLinux</a></i></div>

How To List Packages From A PPA / Repository In Ubuntu

A few weeks ago, we saw how to find out to which PPA / repository a package belongs to in Ubuntu / Debian. But how about getting a list of ...

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Apt-fast is a script that can "<i>drastically improve APT download speed</i>" by using command line download accelerators such as Axel or Aria2 with multiple connections per package.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">We've actually blogged about apt-fast back in 2009 but since then, the script has received some important changes so I've wanted to update our readers with its current status.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Since our previous apt-fast articles, the script has gained support for multiple download tools (axel and aria2), an option to download the binary in the current folder as well as an option to use either apt-get or aptitude. Furthermore, apt-fast has an official PPA for Ubuntu users and it's even present in the official repositories for some Linux distributions, like  PCLinuxOS for instance.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Wa46JN229kp63WGJdyloCkTcpVhFbXkiqmzPFv_Hz5PAL28ZLbR7HQyDWA0F3POBJkKn_2CGRjRxgqtMr-hQsNhset4neENvY9FC6bgVcCTmiuOBPeS01Fygh6one3QtJAHTjyV1J-bZ/s1600/apt-fast.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="apt-fast" border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Wa46JN229kp63WGJdyloCkTcpVhFbXkiqmzPFv_Hz5PAL28ZLbR7HQyDWA0F3POBJkKn_2CGRjRxgqtMr-hQsNhset4neENvY9FC6bgVcCTmiuOBPeS01Fygh6one3QtJAHTjyV1J-bZ/s320/apt-fast.png" title="apt-fast" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>Features:</b><br /><ul><li>uses <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2009/10/aria2-cross-platform-command-line-tool.html">aria2</a> or axel, 2 great command line download tools to improve download speed, with multiple connections per package </li><li>supports both apt-get and aptitude</li><li>proxy support</li><li>supports most apt-get functions: install, upgrade, dist-upgrade, build-dep and so on</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Don't expect the script to do wonders for slow Internet connections (though I can't really comment here since I have a really fast connection), but if you have a  decent Internet connection, you should see some pretty big improvements in downloading the binaries. This is especially useful for installing / upgrading multiple or large packages, such as games (hint for <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/09/rts-game-0-ad-hits-alpha-11.html">0 AD</a> fans).<br /><br />apt-fast only speeds up downloading the binaries, so even though 'apt-fast update' works, this command isn't ran using a download accelerator so the speed is the same as with apt-get. <b>Support for the 'update' command is, however, planned for a future release</b>. If you can help implement this, see the apt-fast <a href="https://github.com/ilikenwf/apt-fast">GitHub page</a>.</div><br /><br /><h2>Install apt-fast</h2><br /><b>Ubuntu users can install the latest stable apt-fast from its official PPA:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apt-fast/stable<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install apt-fast<br /></code></pre><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrrtQ5dsRMgB13oDyRvFH699r8IMyAaY2IwQUBPDO1cXxopTPGMFWkXQcgtlNrlpP6yhXDBSNzS3WulIb7vcSSIJcjEWZpKob6MSjLyUFyGQtdU7ZFDx02GeBGYXhs9BHNTJ6sGIean90D/s1600/apt-fast-configure.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="apt-fast configuration" border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrrtQ5dsRMgB13oDyRvFH699r8IMyAaY2IwQUBPDO1cXxopTPGMFWkXQcgtlNrlpP6yhXDBSNzS3WulIb7vcSSIJcjEWZpKob6MSjLyUFyGQtdU7ZFDx02GeBGYXhs9BHNTJ6sGIean90D/s320/apt-fast-configure.png" title="apt-fast configuration" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">When installing apt-fast in Ubuntu via its PPA, the package asks you if you want to use aptitude or apt-get, what download manager to use (axel or aria2c). If, later on, you want to change some of the apt-fast options, use the following command:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo dpkg-reconfigure apt-fast</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">aria2c is the download tool recommended by the apt-fast developers, mostly because it supports resuming downloads.</div><br /><b>For other Linux distributions, you can download apt-fast from <a href="https://github.com/ilikenwf/apt-fast">GitHub</a>.</b><br /><br /><br /><h2>Using apt-fast</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">apt-fast works the same as apt-get and all you have to do is use "sudo apt-fast install PACKAGE" instead of "apt-get" and so on for any operation.</div><br />Install a package:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-fast install PACKAGE</code></pre><br />Upgrade packages:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-fast upgrade</code></pre><br />Install the build dependencies for a package:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-fast build-dep PACKAGE</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Like I was saying, the commands are identical to apt-get and all you have to do is replace "apt-get" with "apt-fast". <b>There's also a download command ("apt-fast download PACKAGE") which downloads the binary into the current directory</b>.</div><br />If you encounter bugs, report them @ <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/apt-fast">Launchpad</a> or <a href="https://github.com/ilikenwf/apt-fast">GitHub</a>.

Speed Up apt-get Downloads With apt-fast [Ubuntu PPA]

Apt-fast is a script that can " drastically improve APT download speed " by using command line download accelerators such as Axel ...

+ Read more »