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Felipe G. M. Maia
Asked: 2020-03-08 16:58:41 +0800 CST

How can I search for a package, using APT, by it's name only?

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How can I make a search by the package name with APT? I don't want the package's description to be considered in the query.

apt search

1 Answers

  1. For that purpose, you can simply use:

    apt search --names-only package_name

    The flag --names-only will make the search take into consideration just the field "Package (name)". This can reduce the number of results significantly.

    If you have, or want, the exact name of the package, you can instead use:

    apt list package_name

    For instance:

    • apt search vim

    returns more than 100 packages (package description considered for the query).

    • apt search --names-only vim

    returns around 50 packages (package description not considered for the query).

    • apt list vim

    returns only 1 package (package-name exact match).

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