Ubuntu – How to list all packages installed as dependencies in Terminal, and what installed them

command linedependenciesinstalled-programs

Is there a way in Terminal to list all programs which have not been installed by me, but other programs as necessary dependencies? And can I at the same time view which programs they were installed by?

Best Answer

Using aptitude a high-level interface to the package manager, but you have to install it first

sudo apt-get install aptitude

After that

aptitude search '?installed(?automatic)'

to see a list of automatically installed packages.

And to see at the same time which programs they were installed by:

  • Only Depends

    aptitude -F %p search '?installed(?automatic)' | \
    while read x ; do aptitude why "$x" | awk '/Depends/' ; done

  • Or the full list

    aptitude -F %p search '?installed(?automatic)' | \
    while read x ; do aptitude why "$x"; done

Sample output

i   texlive-full   Depends lcdf-typetools
i A lcdf-typetools Depends aglfn         
i   python3-apparmor-click Depends apparmor-easyprof
i   aptitude Depends aptitude-common (= 0.6.11-1ubuntu3)
i   arronax Depends arronax-base
i   arronax Depends arronax-nautilus
i   ubuntu-dev-tools Depends    devscripts (>= 2.11.0~)
i   lxc-docker       Depends    lxc-docker-1.7.1
i   gnome-common Depends autopoint
i A nvidia-prime Depends    bbswitch-dkms                    
i   calibre            Depends python-pil | python-imaging      
i A python-pil         Depends mime-support | python-pil.imagetk
i A python-pil.imagetk Depends python-tk (>= 2.7.7-2)           
i A python-tk          Depends blt (>= 2.4z-9)                  
i   bluegriffon Depends bluegriffon-data (= 1.7.2-1~getdeb2~raring)
i   playonlinux Depends cabextract
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