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;">There are various reasons why you may need to find out to which PPA a package belongs to, for instance, in case a package in a PPA breaks something on your system, if you want to install a package which is already installed on your computer on some other machine but you don't know the PPA you've used to install it and so on.<br /><br />So here's a <b>quick tip on how to find out to which PPA a package belongs to. </b></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To find out the PPA to which a package belongs to, simply run the following command in a terminal</b>:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>apt-cache policy <b>PACKAGE_NAME</b></code></pre>replacing "PACKAGE_NAME" with the package you want to find out the PPA for.<br /><br /><b>Example:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>apt-cache policy oracle-java7-installer</code></pre><br />Here's how the command output looks like:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2_uKAYsNzRx6hxpoEVv4NCEnHCZWHDuvQ4lL44RDHhlolzl3tooXX0TtBOxTQ7cEegE5mF83omuih_e0i7UQ8fG30AEbCNBiNUlzF7yo_iZoNX44xwXz6KielTj8TDXowHrVht5H06ARI/s1600/apt-cache-policy-ppa.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="apt-cache pollicy" border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2_uKAYsNzRx6hxpoEVv4NCEnHCZWHDuvQ4lL44RDHhlolzl3tooXX0TtBOxTQ7cEegE5mF83omuih_e0i7UQ8fG30AEbCNBiNUlzF7yo_iZoNX44xwXz6KielTj8TDXowHrVht5H06ARI/s320/apt-cache-policy-ppa.png" title="apt-cache pollicy" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">As you can see, the command output displays the PPA url, which, right after "ppa.launchpad.net" contains the PPA you've used to install the package ("webupd8team/java" in my example above).</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">This, of course, also works with packages from the official Ubuntu repositories as well as packages from non-Launchpad repositories. For instance, here's how the output of "<b>apt-cache policy opera</b>" looks like (Opera is installed through its own repository):</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBFeMQ2LaWaIwILiWf4dMt70GVC2y4nVZf4ypLOHm4tLwZeeolw5fwkFnNjyVDK1vajxzh8oCekz0fupzy5_PdNXuwagGmwaBaWUImbcOiezAg29TqmvEAdKsBgB19n_13Q50zuS-0qVQ9/s1600/apt-cache-policy-repository.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="apt-cache pollicy" border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBFeMQ2LaWaIwILiWf4dMt70GVC2y4nVZf4ypLOHm4tLwZeeolw5fwkFnNjyVDK1vajxzh8oCekz0fupzy5_PdNXuwagGmwaBaWUImbcOiezAg29TqmvEAdKsBgB19n_13Q50zuS-0qVQ9/s320/apt-cache-policy-repository.png" title="apt-cache pollicy" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">If the repository url is missing, it means you've installed the deb manually, not through a repository (and the package is not available in any repository on your system) or that the repository has been disabled or removed after the package installation.</div>

How To Find Out To Which PPA Repository A Package Belongs To

There are various reasons why you may need to find out to which PPA a package belongs to, for instance, in case a package in a PPA breaks so...

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