Research and Development
On Ubuntu or Ubuntu Linux-based systems, it is easy to list all application packages installed in a command line application in Terminal, without third-party graphical user interface software. Try the following commands to list all the software in Ubuntu and find out the differences.
apt list --installed
The list will consist of all the applications directly installed, as well as all the libraries and other packages that were indirectly installed (e.g. as dependencies).
dpkg --get-selections
dpkg-query -l
dpkg -l |awk '/^[hi]i/{print $2}'
dpkg -l | grep '^ii '
apt-cache pkgnames
grep ' installed ' /var/log/dpkg.log /var/log/dpkg.log.1 | awk '{print $5}' | sort -u
The following command lists all packages intentionally installed by the apt command:
apt-mark showmanual
(zcat $(ls -tr /var/log/apt/history.log*.gz); cat /var/log/apt/history.log) 2>/dev/null | \
egrep '^(Start-Date:|Commandline:)' | grep -v aptdaemon | egrep '^Commandline:'
To focus the search on a specific package(s), then here are a couple of commands that might help out:
apt show program_name
apt list --installed | grep program_name
apt -qq list program_name --installed
Following the above methods, you will get a list of all the installed packages in alphabetical order. For most users, the list will be a long one. Try piping the output using less.
You can also refer to the dpkg command's log or the apt command's log if you want the list of installed packages to be presented in chronological order. Doing that can help you quickly pinpoint which apps or packages were installed recently.
To list all the packages as well as dependencies that were recently installed, along with the time they were installed on the system, use the following command:
grep " install " /var/log/dpkg.log
The following command will search the apt command's log:
grep " install " ~/.bash_history
If you are looking for a list of all the packages on your Ubuntu system that needs to be updated, then here is the command to help you out:
apt list –-upgradable
Here is the corresponding command:
dpkg-query -f '${binary:Package}\n' -W | wc -l
It generates a list of all the installed packages that are due for an update.
To list all versions of a package, execute the following command:
apt-cache policy Package_Name
The system will present all the available package versions in a repository. This is a repository-wide search. You will get results even for packages that have not been installed on your system.
For listing the Snap packages installed on your system, you could use the following command:
snap list
To list the package names only:
snap list | awk '{print $1}'
Similarly, for listing the Flatpak packages installed on your system:
flatpack list