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I usually search for packages using apt-cache (e.g. apt-cache search 'flash player') or by using the search functionality on https://packages.ubuntu.com.

Now suppose I wish to search the package list of an old Ubuntu release such as Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin. How can I do it? apt-cache search ... only searches the packages available for the version of Ubuntu I am using. https://packages.ubuntu.com only searches a few of the latest releases.

I suppose I could download the package list from http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/binary-amd64/, but what do I do with the package list to be able to search it? I prefer using something similar to apt-cache search ..., but I do not want to mess up my existing packages just because I want to search an old package list.

Flux
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  • @Terrance I am not interested in installing packages from old releases. I only want to search the package lists of old releases. – Flux Nov 17 '20 at 04:21
  • @Terrance So it's not possible to use apt-cache search to search old package lists without messing up my current installation's package lists? – Flux Nov 17 '20 at 04:33
  • @Terrance Okay. Once I download the package list file (Package.gz) and un-gzip it, is there a better tool than grep for searching the file? – Flux Nov 17 '20 at 04:39
  • @Terrance But the problem with grep is that it will also return hits in the "Depends" field. – Flux Nov 17 '20 at 04:41
  • @Terrance I asked about chroot in another question, but that is an entirely unrelated question. This question has nothing to do with the other one. They are completely separate. In this question, I want to search the package lists from old releases. Only search. The chroot thing is for a completely unrelated problem. – Flux Nov 17 '20 at 04:49

1 Answers1

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For online search I would recommend to use the https://repology.org service.

If we search for xbattle

search for xbattle on repology.org

as the package of interest

search results for xbattle on repology.org

it will show the following:

xbattle @ repology.org

So this package was last available in 12.04 LTS. If you click on the xbattle then you will be transferred to the launchpad project page.

N0rbert
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