APT Package Management – How to Find Files Installed by a Package

aptpackage-management

I have installed pulseaudio-module-bluetooth using apt.

$ type pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
bash: type: pulseaudio-module-bluetooth: not found
$ which pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
$ whereis pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
pulseaudio-module-bluetooth:

Clearly, I'm looking for the wrong thing. The package does not simply install a command that is the same name as the package. Alright, then.

I want to find out what all commands (or executables) this package installed, and their locations.

The answers to "How to get information about deb package archive?" tell me how to find the files installed by the package if I have a .deb file. I'm not installing directly from a .deb file, though. I'm using apt. Where is the .deb file that that used? Is there a copy on my system somewhere that I can query with the commands in the answers to that question? Where?

If there isn't a local copy on my system, can I get one with apt? How?

Is there some handy apt (or similar) command that wraps this up for me, so that I do not have to run dpkg-deb directly? What is it?

Can I find the package's file list entirely on-line, without explicitly downloading any .deb files and before installing anything with apt? How?

Best Answer

I think there is an existing answer to your question (which isn’t How to get information about deb package archive?), but I can’t find it.

To list the contents of an installed package, use dpkg -L:

dpkg -L pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

If you want to list the contents of a package before installing it, install apt-file, then run apt update, and

apt-file list pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

will list the contents of the package without downloading it or installing it.

You can also view the contents of a package from its web page; look for “list of files” links at the bottom of the page.

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