Ubuntu – How to check the available version of a package in the repositories

package-management

How can I check the version of the available package in the Ubuntu repositories without installing it?

Best Answer

Use the command:

apt-cache policy <packageName>

This gives you information of all available package versions.

Example:

alaa@aa-lu:~$ apt-cache policy vlc
vlc:
  Installed: 2.0.8-0ubuntu0.13.04.1
  Candidate: 2.0.8-0ubuntu0.13.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 2.0.8-0ubuntu0.13.04.1 0
        500 http://ae.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring-updates/universe i386 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring-security/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.0.6-1 0
        500 http://ae.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring/universe i386 Packages

From the output, you can see that there are two versions available: 2.0.8-0ubuntu0.13.04.1 and 2.0.6-1. It also tells you which repositories they are coming from.
Installed: tells you the version you have installed. If you don't have the package installed, you'll see (none).
Candidate: is the version that will be installed if you use apt-get install vlc. If you want to install the other version, you would do apt-get install vlc=2.0.6-1.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to filter “dpkg –get-selections” to just packages available in repositories

I believe Software Center has a feature for syncing between computers these days. If that handle missing packages correctly, it could solve your problem.

The issue here is that dpkg isn't aware of repositories, only installed packages. You can find out if a package is available in a repository by running apt-cache policy $package. If you see a repository in the Version Table, it's available there.

So, how about this?. It's slow, but should work:

dpkg --get-selections '*' \
  | while read line; do
    apt-cache policy $(echo "$line" | cut -f1 ) \
      | grep -q 'http://' \
      && echo "$line"
done

Ubuntu – Version of updated package

To see the versions of a package you could use:

apt-cache show redmine | grep -i version

Output is:

Version: 1.3.2+dfsg1-1ubuntu1

To see the versions and the repository you could use:

apt-cache policy redmine

Output is:

redmine:
  Installiert: (keine)
  Kandidat:    1.3.2+dfsg1-1ubuntu1
  Versionstabelle:
     1.3.2+dfsg1-1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe amd64 Packages

See: WebUpd8 - How To Find Out To Which PPA Repository A Package Belongs To

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to filter “dpkg –get-selections” to just packages available in repositories

Ubuntu – Version of updated package

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