Package management is one of the most common operation for any Linux users. Although Linux does come pre-installed with a suite of good and useful tools, you will encounter yourself installing custom packages on your system.
In this tutorial, we will show you various methods and techniques you can use to view the list of installed packages using various package management systems, including apt, dnf, dpkg, snap, and yum.
APT List Installed Packages
Advanced Packaging Tool, or APT, is a command-line utility that allows you to install, uninstall, update and manage packages on Debian based systems. It is one of the most popular packages in Debian systems such Ubuntu, Linux Mint, !Pop OS, etc.
To list installed packages on Debian systems using apt, run the comand as shown:
sudo apt list --installedThe command should list all the packages installed on the target system.The command may contain a lot of output. You can pipe the output to other tools such as grep, less or head.
For example, to show the first 10 packages, run the command:
sudo apt list --installed | head -10Output:
Listing...
adduser/stable,now 3.118 all [installed]
apt-utils/stable,now 2.2.4 amd64 [installed]
apt/stable,now 2.2.4 amd64 [installed]
base-files/now 11.1+deb11u3 amd64 [installed,upgradable to: 11.1+deb11u5]
base-passwd/stable,now 3.5.51 amd64 [installed]
bash/now 5.1-2+b3 amd64 [installed,upgradable to: 5.1-2+deb11u1]
bsdutils/stable,stable-security,now 1:2.36.1-8+deb11u1 amd64 [installed]
ca-certificates/stable,now 20210119 all [installed,automatic]
coreutils/stable,now 8.32-4+b1 amd64 [installed]The output above includes other details such as the state under which the package was installed:
installed- this indicates that the package was installed manually by the user.installed,automatic- the package was instaled automatically as a dependency.installed,local- the package was installed via local method and not from official repository. An example would be adpkgpackage.
Apt Show Specific Package Details
You can also pass the package name to the apt command to show the details about that package. An example is as shown:
sudo apt list curl -a --installedOutput:
Listing... Done
curl/bullseye-backports 7.85.0-1~bpo11+1 amd64
curl/stable,now 7.74.0-1.3+deb11u3 amd64 [installed]
curl/stable-security 7.74.0-1.3+deb11u2 amd64DNF Show Installed Packages
Dandified YUM, or simply DNF, is the successor to the popular Yellowdog Updater, Modified package manager, more commonly known as YUM. It is a popular package manager in REHL systems such as RedHat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Fedora, etc.
You can learn how to use DNF in the link below:
https://www.geekbits.io/dnf-package-manager-beginners-guide/
To show the installed packages in DNF, run the command:
dnf list installed | head -10The command show list the top 10 installed packages on your system. An example output is as shown:
Installed Packages
NetworkManager.x86_64 1:1.39.7-2.el9 @anaconda
NetworkManager-libnm.x86_64 1:1.39.7-2.el9 @anaconda
NetworkManager-team.x86_64 1:1.39.7-2.el9 @anaconda
NetworkManager-tui.x86_64 1:1.39.7-2.el9 @anaconda
PackageKit.x86_64 1.2.4-2.el9 @koji-override-1
PackageKit-glib.x86_64 1.2.4-2.el9 @koji-override-1
abattis-cantarell-fonts.noarch 0.301-4.el9 @koji-override-1
acl.x86_64 2.3.1-3.el9 @anaconda
adobe-source-code-pro-fonts.noarch 2.030.1.050-12.el9.1 @koji-override-1This shows the installed package, version and the source.
DPKG Show Installed Packages
Another common package manager for Debian systems is DPKG.
To show installed packages with dnf, run the command:
dpkg --get-selections | grep -w "install" | head -10In this case, we use the --get-selections parameter to show the list of package selections to standard out. We then pipe the output to grep to filter for the installed packages.
An example output is as shown:
adduser install
apt install
apt-utils install
base-files install
base-passwd install
bash install
bsdutils install
ca-certificates install
coreutils install
cpio installIf you do not wish the above command chaining, you can use the dpkg-query command for similar operation.
The command is as shown:
dpkg-query -lThe command should display detailed information about the installed packages, including description and architecture.
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==========================-==============================-============-===============================================================================
ii adduser 3.118 all add and remove users and groups
ii apt 2.2.4 amd64 commandline package manager
ii apt-utils 2.2.4 amd64 package management related utility programs
ii base-files 11.1+deb11u3 amd64 Debian base system miscellaneous files
ii base-passwd 3.5.51 amd64 Debian base system master password and group files
ii bash 5.1-2+b3 amd64 GNU Bourne Again SHell
ii bsdutils 1:2.36.1-8+deb11u1 amd64 basic utilities from 4.4BSD-Lite
ii ca-certificates 20210119 all Common CA certificates
ii coreutils 8.32-4+b1 amd64 GNU core utilities
ii cpio 2.13+dfsg-4 amd64 GNU cpio -- a program to manage archives of files
ii cron 3.0pl1-137 amd64 process scheduling daemon
ii curl 7.74.0-1.3+deb11u3 amd64 command line tool for transferring data with URL syntax
ii dash 0.5.11+git20200708+dd9ef66-5 amd64 POSIX-compliant shell
ii debconf 1.5.77 all Debian configuration management system
ii debconf-i18n 1.5.77 all full internationalization support for debconfSnap Show Installed Packages
Snap is a package manager developed by Canonical by use with Ubuntu systems and supported systems. To show installed packages with snap, run the command:
snap listThe command should show all installed packages.
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
core20 20220826 1623 latest/stable canonical✓ base
lxd 4.0.9-8e2046b 22753 4.0/stable/… canonical✓ -
snapd 2.57.2 17029 latest/stable canonical✓ snapdPacman Show Installed Packages
Pacman is a package manager to Arch Linux and Arch based distributions. To show the installed packages using pacman, run the command:
pacman -QAn example output is as shown:
acl 2.3.1-2
arch-install-scripts 24-2
archlinux-keyring 20220125-1
argon2 20190702-4
attr 2.5.1-2
audit 3.0.7-1
base 2-2
bash 5.1.016-1
brotli 1.0.9-7
bzip2 1.0.8-4
ca-certificates 20210603-1
ca-certificates-mozilla 3.75-1Flatpak Show Installed Packages
flatpack is one of the popular universal package managers in the Linux systems. To show the installed packages with flatpack, run the command:
flatpak listThis should return information about the available packages.
Ending…
In this post, we discussed how to use various Linux package managers to show the list of available package managers.
We hoped you enjoyed this article. Leave a comment to let us know where we can make improvements.
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