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casper
Asked: 2011-12-13 03:47:14 +0800 CST

aptitude: list all previous recommended packages

  • 772

Sometimes when installing a package, aptitude recommends several other packages.

Is there a way to show all previous recommended packages of all installed packages?

Edit:

Thanks for the replys so far. I already tried:

aptitude show ~i | grep '^Recommends' | cut -d ' ' -f 2-

Thats mostly ok. But it gives also things back like:

 console-setup | console-data (>= 2002.12.04dbs-1)

I want an easy way, to install all missing recommended packages.

So

 aptitude install console-setup | console-data (>= 2002.12.04dbs-1)

won't work ;-)

Is there a way, without manual checking all entries, to do this?

debian packages aptitude

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Synaptic -> Custom Filters -> Missing Recommends

    or

    aptitude search '~RBrecommends:~i'

    (thanks to http://blog.isonoe.net/post/2011/07/18/Debian-Tips-1%3A-Find-missing-recommended-packages)

    • 12

  2. Maybe there's a more elegant way, but this works for me,

    for package in $(dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall | awk '{print $1}')
  do
    echo $package
    dpkg-query -s $package | grep Recommends
  done
    • 2

  3. another suggestion:

    awk '/(^Package|^Recomm)/' /var/lib/dpkg/status | grep -B1 ^Recommends

    @EightBitTony: awk is also very good in searching, try this:

    dpkg --get-selections | awk ' !/deinstall$/{print $1}'
    • 2

  4. Here my way - report for missing recommends :)

    apt-cache --no-pre-depends --no-depends --no-suggests --no-conflicts --no-breaks --no-replaces --no-enhances depends `dpkg --get-selections | grep '\sinstall$' | cut -f1` | grep -vf <(dpkg --get-selections | grep '\sinstall$' | cut -f1 | sed -e 's/^/ /' -e 's/\(:.*\|\)$/$/') | grep -B1 '^ '
    • 2

  5. Get a list of installed packages with missing recommended package:

    aptitude search '?installed?broken-recommends'

    Get a list of not installed, missing packages that are recommended by installed packages - "missing recommends":

    aptitude search '?broken-reverse-recommends(?installed)'

    Get which package is recommending a specific "missing recommend":

    aptitude search '?installed?broken-recommends(MISSING_PKG_NAME)'

    One liner: For all "missing recommends", get by which packages are recommended:

    for p in $(aptitude search -F%p '?broken-reverse-recommends(?installed)'); do echo $p; aptitude search "?installed?broken-recommends($p)"; done

    You can find "missing recommends" in Synaptic package manager. (As I see, Synaptic shows also the missing Suggested packages.)

    You can install all "missing recommends" with one command but I do not recommend it! First, review the list of packages before install. (For example, fresh install of debian buster shows missing "default-mta", which is a virtual package.)

    apt install $(aptitude search -F%p '?broken-reverse-recommends(?installed)')

    (This is summary from few similar questions. Hope it will help someone else.)

    • 2