Ubuntu – Show All Installed Programs

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

Ubuntu's file system is organised according to the filesystem hierarchy standard and therefore there, generally speaking, is no equivalent to c:\program files.

The location of package files installed through apt can be viewed with dpkg -L, e.g.

dpkg -L leafpad