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Asked: 2019-04-04 01:06:13 +0800 CST

How do I list package contents using apt-file? [duplicate]

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Sometimes it's necessary to see what's inside a package which was not installed. Normally I use apt-file for this purpose. At most times this works fine, but in some cases I can't retrieve any information about the package contents using apt-file, meanwhile such a package have some files inside and seems not to be a meta package.

For example: Ubuntu 16.04 lts amd64, package name: linux-image-4.15.0-1010-oracle.

If I download it, using apt-get download and then extract, I can see vmlinuz-4.15.0-1010-oracle file inside of it.

But apt-file show linux-image-4.15.0-1010-oracle shows nothing.

apt-file update was made before any usage of apt-file.

So how should I use apt-file to see content information for this package? And why it shows me nothing?

package-management apt apt-file

2 Answers

  1. You can also use dpkg -L packagename.

    It is similar to apt-file, but it is only searching and listing installed packages.

    Also you have to know that commands with apt means, for example: apt-get means installing packages from the INTERNET. Maybe some of your packages are not installed from the internet...

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    • dpkg --contents ~/Downloads/eudic.deb ：List contents of a deb package.
    • apt-file search keywords ： Find package filename contain keywords
    • apt-file list package-name ：List files in packages
    # case 1: -L not work
terry@home-ubuntu:~/Downloads$ dpkg -L eudic.deb
dpkg-query: package 'eudic.deb' is not installed
Use dpkg --contents (= dpkg-deb --contents) to list archive files contents.

# case 2: dpkg --contents ~/Downloads/eudic.deb (show package list)
terry@home-ubuntu:~$ dpkg --contents ~/Downloads/eudic.deb
drwxr-xr-x eusoft/eusoft     0 2021-09-08 08:19 ./
drwxr-xr-x eusoft/eusoft     0 2021-09-08 08:18 ./usr/
drwxr-xr-x eusoft/eusoft     0 2021-09-08 08:21 ./usr/share/
drwxr-xr-x eusoft/eusoft     0 2021-09-08 08:18 ./usr/share/applications/
...

# case 3: apt-file search libgio (file name contain keyword `libgio`)
terry@home-ubuntu:~/Downloads$ apt-file search libgio
glib-networking: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgioenvironmentproxy.so
glib-networking: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgiognomeproxy.so
glib-networking: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgiognutls.so
glib-networking: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgiolibproxy.so
gvfs: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libgioremote-volume-monitor.so
libgio-cil: /usr/share/doc/libgio-cil/changelog.Debian.gz
....

# case 4: apt-file list libglib2.0-0
terry@home-ubuntu:~/Downloads$ apt-file list libglib2.0-0
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/glib-2.0/gio-launch-desktop
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/glib-2.0/gio-querymodules
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/glib-2.0/glib-compile-schemas
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgio-2.0.so.0
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgio-2.0.so.0.7200.1
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0.7200.1
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmodule-2.0.so.0
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmodule-2.0.so.0.7200.1
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0.7200.1
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgthread-2.0.so.0
libglib2.0-0: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgthread-2.0.so.0.7200.1
libglib2.0-0: /usr/share/doc/libglib2.0-0/NEWS.gz
libglib2.0-0: /usr/share/doc/libglib2.0-0/README.md
libglib2.0-0: /usr/share/doc/libglib2.0-0/changelog.Debian.gz
libglib2.0-0: /usr/share/doc/libglib2.0-0/copyright
libglib2.0-0: /usr/share/glib-2.0/clean-up-unmanaged-libraries
libglib2.0-0: /usr/share/lintian/overrides/libglib2.0-0
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