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apt-cache dump --installed doesn't work, it lists uninstalled packages as well.

I want to list the install packages each by one line, with the installed version number.

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6 Answers

up vote 23 down vote accepted

try dpkg -l

it lists you the packages, version and a short description.

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Simplest, but might show a few extraneous packages and truncates long package names and version numbers:

dpkg -l

To list only correctly installed packages and not truncate names:

dpkg -l | grep '^ii'

To get more control over the output format, you can use dpkg-query:

dpkg-query -W -f '${status} ${package} ${version}\n' |
sed -n 's/^install ok installed //p'
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It also gives you info about the package state (up to date, upgradable, ...)

This program is separately packaged in the apt-show-versions package. Install it first with:

apt-get install apt-show-versions
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To list the names of each installed package, type as a superuser :

dpkg --get-selections

You will get an output like this :

accountsservice              install
aclinstall                   install
acpi-supportinstall          install
acpidinstall                 install

To remove the unecessary "install" character string, you can use sed :

dpkg --get-selections | sed 's:install$::'

And if yout want to save it to a file called InstalledPackages, you type this :

dpkg --get-selections | sed 's:install$::' > InstalledPackages
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The following command is a solution that additionally can help to install the listed packages in their listed versions later again (on the same or another system):

aptitude -q -F "%?p=%?V %M" --disable-columns search \~i > pkg-selections.txt

Each line will contain package name, version and an optional "A" if the package was installed automatically.

Source: "Cloning a Debian system - identical packages and versions". See there too for a little script to re-setup a system from the saved list of packages and versions.

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If you do not have access to live system, and have a backup of root/ partition, you can :

root@backup_server /mnt/old_root/var/lib/dpkg/info # ls -la *.list | awk {'print $9'}| sed 's/.list//' >> /root/installed_app

Now this /root/installed_app contain all installed packages!

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