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Everything is running fine in my ubuntu machines and I especially like the centralized package system it has, but there is one thing that feel "not quite enough" is the sorting system. I would normally install packages as I need and when I no longer need it I simply forget about it. Now when I install a temporary package I will use sudo apt-mark auto *package name* so I can autoremove it when I don't need it anymore but there is still a problem.

On my Windows machine I sometimes give dedicated folders to store software binaries of different category. For example, I have Fusion360 and PrusaSlicer grouped together as my 3d printing tools then qbittorrent and Hex IRC as my file sharing tools. This way I can neatly organize my packages and manage them.

I noticed that the application menu actually has categorized the applications, I wonder if it is possible to set some personal tags and categories using some applications. It would be better if I can access a list of categorized software in the terminal and even better if they are CLI applications.

TD;DR - I want a way to categorize even CLI applications and able to list all applications in the category in a single command like apt list and preferably also list all categories available.

R3G3N3R4T0R
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    Most .desktop files have a Category= line. You can edit that. – DK Bose Apr 10 '20 at 12:20
  • @DKBose But then I still need some kind of ways to sort the packages on the terminal, else it is no use for cli applications and it is still messy when trying to organize and manage them. – R3G3N3R4T0R Apr 10 '20 at 17:08
  • I'm not clear about what you want to do. BTW, I don't like sudo apt-mark auto *package name*. I prefer to let the system handle things. Do https://askubuntu.com/questions/27213/what-is-the-linux-equivalent-to-windows-program-files , https://superuser.com/questions/461788/where-is-installed-software-stored-in-linux and https://superuser.com/questions/284388/where-is-a-typical-linux-program-installed help? – DK Bose Apr 11 '20 at 05:38
  • @DKBose added a TL;DR that also clarify what I want to do, basically. apt-mark auto is only used to remind me of packages I may not want now for like when I need to build a package I need a lot of dev packages that I don't need after installation and I can make a script to install them if I always need to build it but I can still auto-remove them so I don't need another uninstall script. – R3G3N3R4T0R Apr 11 '20 at 16:40
  • This may have some info: https://askubuntu.com/questions/651123/how-to-generate-a-list-of-categorized-list-of-applications?noredirect=1#comment935144_651123 – oldfred Apr 11 '20 at 17:21
  • @oldfred That is close. Something like a CLI version of alacarte is what I am searching for. – R3G3N3R4T0R Apr 11 '20 at 18:59
  • As posted there, this gives a text file. dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package} ${Version} ${Section}\n' > filesystem.manifest – oldfred Apr 11 '20 at 19:08
  • @oldfred that is useful for listing them but it is still hard to list all categories and change them. but that being said I am trying automating the process using some shell script. – R3G3N3R4T0R Apr 11 '20 at 21:10

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