How do I get the prosaic description of a package using apt? I tried both apt-cache show and apt-cache showpkg but no luck.
Using synaptic it's easy as typing the package name and the description is given by the standard view, but sometimes I'd prefer to just use apt-cache, for example from terminal.
If you would just use apt-cache search package-name, all packages with "package-name" in it would be returned. To limit to a package named "package-name", use:
apt-cache search ^package-name$
apt-cache search ^vim$ doesn't only find the vim package, but some more, but not all, that apt-cache search ^vim finds ???
– rubo77
Mar 30 '17 at 08:10
apt-cache search ^vim$ also lists other packages like vim-gtk because that package provides the vim package. You can check that with apt-cache show vim-gtk.
– Lekensteyn
Mar 30 '17 at 12:12
^..$ does not list other packages, only one between the regex delimiters.
– Timo
May 04 '22 at 09:56
You can do this with aptitude as in:
aptitude show package-name
apt show, check with eg colordiff -y --suppress-common-lines <(apt-cache show feh) <(aptitude show feh)
– Pablo Bianchi
Jan 13 '20 at 04:52
apt-cache show <packagename> does what you want. You might have overseen it. The following command highlights it:
apt-cache show scons | grep --color -E "Description|$"
apt show --description --maintainer<package>?
– Édouard Lopez
Jul 29 '16 at 09:56
Lekensteyn answer is great to get the short description. Extending Martin's answer you can get also the larger multi-line description (also in other languages):
apt-cache show figlet toilet | grep -E "^Package|^Description-en|^ "
If you use this a lot you can add this function to your .bashrc/.zshrc:
apt-desc() { apt-cache show "$@" | grep -E "^Package|^Description-en|^ "; }
For a normal case just use the friendlier apt show.
Package means to color Package in red or whatever default highlight color is and |^ to output the rest in standard color?
– Timo
May 04 '22 at 10:05
| acts like an OR operator. Paste any regex on sites like regexr.com or regex101.com to learn more. Remove match highlight (usually in red) by adding --color=never to grep options.
– Pablo Bianchi
May 04 '22 at 11:14
Assuming you are looking for a specific package, I believe the following is what you are in search of:
apt-cache search some-pkg
If I have misunderstood what you are trying to do, please let me know.
Strange, for example apt-cache search ^vim$ doesn't only find the vim package, but some more, but not all, that apt-cache search ^vim finds.
So better use this:
PACKAGE=vim
apt-cache search ^$PACKAGE$|egrep "^$PACKAGE -"
apt-cache showshows the package description int theDescription:field. What else are you looking for? – enzotib Jun 19 '11 at 20:56apt-cache showdoes exactly the thing I asked for. – Paolo Jun 19 '11 at 21:07