240

Is it possible to get a list of packages that were most recently installed through apt-get?

Olivier Lalonde
  • 58,691

9 Answers9

276

Command to list recently installed packages that were installed via any method (apt-get, Software Center et al.): 

grep " install " /var/log/dpkg.log

Example output:

2010-12-08 15:48:14 install python-testtools <none> 0.9.2-1
2010-12-08 15:48:16 install quickly-widgets <none> 10.09
2010-12-08 22:21:31 install libobasis3.3-sdk <none> 3.3.0-17
2010-12-09 12:00:24 install mc <none> 3:4.7.0.6-1
2010-12-09 23:32:06 install oggconvert <none> 0.3.3-1ubuntu1
2010-12-09 23:34:50 install mpg123 <none> 1.12.1-3ubuntu1
2010-12-09 23:34:52 install dir2ogg <none> 0.11.8-1
2010-12-09 23:34:53 install faad <none> 2.7-4
2010-12-09 23:34:54 install wavpack <none> 4.60.1-1
2010-12-10 11:53:00 install playonlinux <none> 3.8.6

You could run this command to list only the recently installed package names,

awk '$3~/^install$/ {print $4;}' /var/log/dpkg.log

Command to list history of apt-get (NOTE: this doesn't list dependencies installed, it simply lists previous apt-get commands that were run):

grep " install " /var/log/apt/history.log

Example output:

Commandline: apt-get install libindicate-doc
Commandline: apt-get install googlecl
Commandline: apt-get --reinstall install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Commandline: apt-get install valac libvala-0.10-dev
Commandline: apt-get install libgtksourceview-dev
Commandline: apt-get install python-sphinx
Commandline: apt-get install python-epydoc
Commandline: apt-get install quickly-widgets
Commandline: apt-get install libreoffice3* libobasis3.3*
Commandline: apt-get install mc
heemayl
  • 91,753
Isaiah
  • 59,344
  • the problem with synaptic is that it doesn't show what you do with aptitude, apt-get and dpkg, for this reason +1 for this option – hhlp Dec 12 '10 at 14:36
  • This command will not show updates. Use the software center to see everything. – Dave Dec 07 '12 at 18:19
  • 1
    It might be better to to save a text file like this cat /var/log/apt/history.log | grep "\ install\ " > install.log – CrandellWS Oct 16 '13 at 02:08
  • 6
    grep " install " /var/log/dpkg.log will suffice. There's no need to use cat. See also this. – augurar Sep 10 '14 at 22:54
  • 2
    note that this seems only to find packages which were newly installed. Packages for which a new version was installed appear as upgrade in dpkg.log – Andre Holzner Sep 25 '14 at 18:55
  • This is great, I used it with the "remove" string to get a list of recently unistalled packages! – lfzawacki Nov 04 '14 at 21:53
  • "installed" seems to show both upgraded and installed. – binaryanomaly Jan 14 '16 at 19:45
  • Why does this only show packages from the last two weeks? – Aleksandr Dubinsky Jul 17 '16 at 16:59
  • @AleksandrDubinsky there is log rotate in some cases. So older log may be "dpkg.log.1" and even older are compressed into "dpkg.2.gz". Here is a better version of this answer using zgrep to quickly look inside .gz compressed log then order the output oldest to newest:zgrep -sh . /var/log/dpkg.log{.[0-9]{.gz,},} | awk '$3~/^install$/ {print $1" "$2" "$4;}' – dhaupin Oct 21 '16 at 18:53
  • 1
    And a better version: zgrep " install " /var/log/dpkg.log* – cdosborn Jan 12 '18 at 19:29
  • doesn't return anything for me, do you have idea why (it isn't that I didn't installed anything of course ;)) – Line Mar 01 '19 at 14:50
  • It may be under dpkg.log.{n} – aiwl Jun 13 '21 at 16:39
22

To see also older packages sorted by time of installation:

grep " install " /var/log/dpkg.log.1 /var/log/dpkg.log

And for packages installed very long time ago:

gunzip -c `ls -tr /var/log/dpkg.log.*.gz` | grep " install "
Valentas
  • 988
  • 9
  • 17
  • I found a package that's installed 2 days ago in /var/log/dpkg.log, but not in /var/log/apt/history.log. Still don't know why... – Samuel Li Feb 07 '16 at 03:03
16

Ubuntu's Software Center shows whole history of all packages that were installed/upgraded/removed. Just click "History" at the bottom of the list at left.

Rafał Cieślak
  • 20,494
  • 4
    This history button is now at the top of the GUI and can show installed packages and updates. This should be the accepted answer to the question as its the only answer that works for updates. – Dave Dec 07 '12 at 18:19
  • This question does not specify a desktop (GUI) environment, but the accepted answer is valid in both GUI and non-GUI scenarios. – msanford Jan 11 '16 at 16:32
  • @HDave Definitely not true, dpkg.log logs updates. – GKFX Jul 16 '16 at 12:54
  • 3
    There doesn't seem to be a history option in recent versions of Software Center. – To Do Jul 07 '20 at 09:43
8

The following trick answers Aleksandr Dubinsky's request to limit this to manually-installed packages:

comm -12 <(apt-mark showmanual | sort) <(grep " install " /var/log/dpkg.log | cut -d " " -sf4 | grep -o "^[^:]*" | sort)
  • comm -12 lists lines common to two sorted files.
  • <(command) expands to the name of a file containing the output of command.
  • apt-mark showmanual lists manually installed packages; ie. those that should never be auto-removed.
  • grep " install " /var/log/dpkg.log is taken from the accepted answer.

An alternative, showing more information, in chronological order, and accessing all available logs, is:

zcat -f /var/log/dpkg.log* | grep " install " | sort > /tmp/dpkg.log
grep -F "`comm -12 <(apt-mark showmanual | sort) <(cat /tmp/dpkg.log | cut -d " " -sf4 | grep -o "^[^:]*" | sort)`" /tmp/dpkg.log | grep \<none\>

grep \<none\> limits results to new installations. You could, for example, use grep to limit the search to a three-month period by adding grep 2016-0[567] to the first pipeline; it's very flexible.

GKFX
  • 362
  • This is getting closer. Things that could be improved: 1) show the packages in chronological order, 2) show more details like install date/times, the version, maybe even the size 3) show all packages installed since the OS was installed. – Aleksandr Dubinsky Jul 17 '16 at 17:26
  • Amazing! Do you mind if I clean up your answer to be more concise with more explanations about each command? – Aleksandr Dubinsky Jul 18 '16 at 14:55
  • @AleksandrDubinsky Thanks for that edit; I've corrected the description so that it matches the changes you made. – GKFX Jul 19 '16 at 13:31
  • Do you mind if I remove the "following trick answers Aleksandr Dubinsky's request" noise, the first command which isn't useful, put a good heading, put the main command on top, add sample output, and try to describe all of the commands involved? – Aleksandr Dubinsky Jul 19 '16 at 16:54
  • What do you mean by "grep <none> limits results to new installations"? It does not seem to affect the output (confirmed with grep -v \<none\>). – Aleksandr Dubinsky Jul 19 '16 at 16:59
  • @AleksandrDubinsky Feel free. And you are absolutely right regarding grep \<none\>; I was confused regarding how upgrades are logged. (I thought they were listed as ... install ... v1 v2 but they're not.) Well spotted. – GKFX Jul 20 '16 at 11:12
  • 1
    There's a bug in the last command, because grep -F find partial matches. For example, if python3 is installed, it will also match all python3 libraries (python3-click-package) including ones that are no longer installed. Moreover, grep -Fw doesn't help because - is a word boundary. – Aleksandr Dubinsky Oct 21 '16 at 10:59
7

All on one line; for command use

Select and print only the recently installed package-names, all on one line.

To do so, change the most-voted answer to:

cat /var/log/dpkg.log |awk '/ install / {printf "%s ",$4}'

This results in a single line of package names. Such a line can easily be added to a sudo apt-get purge command.

Example output

libgnome-media-profiles-3.0-0 gstreamer0.10-gconf gnome-media gnome-menus librest-0.7-0 libgoa-1.0-common libgoa-1.0-0 libwacom-common libwacom2 ubuntu-docs apg libgnome-control-center1 libgnomekbd-common libgnomekbd7 gnome-control-center-data gnome-icon-theme-symbolic gnome-settings-daemon ubuntu-system-service gnome-control-center gnome-online-accounts gnome-session-bin indicator-power mousetweaks

Listing packages one below another

By popular demand, here is slightly adapted version for listing the packages one below another:

cat /var/log/dpkg.log |awk '/ install / {printf "%s\n",$4}'
Serge Stroobandt
  • 5,268
  • 1
  • 48
  • 59
  • Don't parse the output of cat command. And how about this awk '$3~/^install$/ {print $4;}' /var/log/dpkg.log? – Avinash Raj May 26 '14 at 01:50
  • @AvinashRaj Your awk command prints the packages one below another; mine one next another. That is why an output example might be useful from time to time. – Serge Stroobandt May 26 '14 at 02:01
2

Here is some shell to list dpkg installed files. (which should include all apt/aptitude/software center/synaptic installed packages)

grep -A 1 "Package: " /var/lib/dpkg/status | \
grep -B 1 -Ee "ok installed|half-installed|unpacked|half-configured|config-files" -Ee "^Essential:yes" | \
grep "Package:" | cut -d\  -f2

This does not include install time/date info. But may be useful in determining any differences in packages installed from os install to current.

Aleksandr Dubinsky
  • 731
  • 8
  • 22
user2697383
  • 76
  • 2
1

Very late to the game, but here's the command line that I found most informative:

$ grep -e upgrade -e install /var/log/dpkg.log

2024-01-22 10:26:37 upgrade libssh-4:amd64 0.10.5-3ubuntu1.1 0.10.5-3ubuntu1.2
2024-01-22 10:26:37 status half-installed libssh-4:amd64 0.10.5-3ubuntu1.1
2024-01-22 10:26:37 upgrade libssh-gcrypt-4:amd64 0.10.5-3ubuntu1.1 0.10.5-3ubuntu1.2
2024-01-22 10:26:37 status half-installed libssh-gcrypt-4:amd64 0.10.5-3ubuntu1.1
2024-01-22 10:26:38 status installed libssh-gcrypt-4:amd64 0.10.5-3ubuntu1.2
2024-01-22 10:26:38 status installed libssh-4:amd64 0.10.5-3ubuntu1.2
2024-01-22 10:26:38 status installed libc-bin:amd64 2.38-1ubuntu6
2024-01-22 10:26:39 upgrade libgnutls30:amd64 3.8.1-4ubuntu1.1 3.8.1-4ubuntu1.2
2024-01-22 10:26:39 status half-installed libgnutls30:amd64 3.8.1-4ubuntu1.1
2024-01-22 10:26:40 status installed libgnutls30:amd64 3.8.1-4ubuntu1.2
2024-01-22 10:26:40 status installed libc-bin:amd64 2.38-1ubuntu6
2024-01-24 14:45:20 upgrade google-chrome-stable:amd64 120.0.6099.224-1 121.0.6167.85-1
2024-01-24 14:45:20 status half-installed google-chrome-stable:amd64 120.0.6099.224-1
2024-01-24 14:45:24 status installed google-chrome-stable:amd64 121.0.6167.85-1
2024-01-24 14:45:24 status installed gnome-menus:amd64 3.36.0-1.1ubuntu1
2024-01-24 14:45:25 status installed man-db:amd64 2.11.2-3
2024-01-24 14:45:25 status installed mailcap:all 3.70+nmu1ubuntu1
2024-01-24 14:45:25 status installed desktop-file-utils:amd64 0.26-1ubuntu5

This greps through the whole log (a month's worth, for me), but the last lines are the most recent and just what I was looking for.

BobHy
  • 131
1

In addition to DoR's answer, for those who prefer a GUI, there is a File -> History menu item in Synaptic.

JanC
  • 19,422
-1

The problem with viewing the installation history in Software Centre or Synaptic is that it's hard to copy/paste the contents into an email (e.g. when talking with tech support!). The alternative is to view the contents of the log files in /var/log/apt as root.

Ian Dickinson
  • 1,444
  • 3
    Just to clarify, to simply view contents in /var/log/apt, you do NOT need to be root, or with any administrator's privilege. – Samuel Li Feb 07 '16 at 03:01