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I want to use Synaptic Package Manager to search for a keyword and list all packages that contain that keyword in the name or description of the package. I can search for keywords in synaptic, but this shows both installed and not installed packages in a list. How can I search for a package, and only list ones that are installed? When I click status and list all installed packages, and then try to search, I only get the same list with both installed and not installed packages.

Grass
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    The answer I got below worked. I installed "apt-xapian-index", and restarted synaptic. Now when I went into status and showed installed packages I can use the quick filter to only show installed packages containing my search word. Super helpful! – Grass Jul 10 '20 at 09:14

1 Answers1

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You need to install one extra package -

sudo apt-get install apt-xapian-index

to get Quick filter field between Properties and Search buttons

search and status in synaptic

then rebuild the search engine index via command:

sudo update-apt-xapian-index -vf

and then restart Synaptic.

Alonso
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N0rbert
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  • This doesn't work anymore (for me using Ubuntu in 22.04). – kris Jun 12 '22 at 00:30
  • @kris Package apt-xapian-index seems to me to be installed by default. apt search apt-xapian-index returns apt-xapian-index/jammy,jammy,now 0.51ubuntu1 all [installed,automatic] on my system. – MDeBusk Oct 22 '22 at 20:19