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I installed a few packages with APT using apt-get. I used the --no-install-recommends switch with it to save some disk space.

Now I need to know: how do I install the recommended packages for the already installed programs?

Eduardo Cola
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    Aptitude has a view in its graphical interface listing all packages which are recommended by any installed package. To reach it, install aptitude, then type aptitude in a terminal, and then press Ctrl+t or use the mouse to go to the menu bar. – Stefan Hamcke Jan 22 '16 at 22:48
  • Is there any way of doing it with a simple apt-get, though? – Eduardo Cola Jan 22 '16 at 22:51
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    you could run apt-get remove <package> then apt-get install <package> – Charles Green Jan 22 '16 at 22:57
  • I'm using only aptitude, so I don't know how to do this with apt-get. If you there were only few packages you installed with this option, and if you know which ones, you could maybe just reinstall them. But that's just an idea... – Stefan Hamcke Jan 22 '16 at 23:00

3 Answers3

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You can run apt-cache show package_you_care_about | grep Recommends.

This will show you all the recommended packages for that particular package. You can then install all the packages there.

For example, with gedit:

apt-cache show gedit | grep Recommends
output: Recommends: gir1.2-gtksource-3.0, zenity, yelp
sudo apt-get install gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 zenity yelp
Mitch
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5

To find all packages with missing recommended packages:

aptitude search '~RBrecommends:~i'
Zanna
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ernobe
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1

Get a list of installed packages with missing recommended package:

aptitude search '?installed?broken-recommends'

Get a list of not installed, missing packages that are recommended by installed packages - "missing recommends":

aptitude search '?broken-reverse-recommends(?installed)'

Get which package is recommending a specific "missing recommend":

aptitude search '?installed?broken-recommends(MISSING_PKG_NAME)'

One liner: For all "missing recommends", get by which packages are recommended:

for p in $(aptitude search -F%p '?broken-reverse-recommends(?installed)'); do echo $p; aptitude search "?installed?broken-recommends($p)"; done

You can find "missing recommends" in Synaptic package manager. (As I see, Synaptic shows also the missing Suggested packages.)

You can install all "missing recommends" with one command but I do not recommend it! First, review the list of packages before install. (For example, fresh install of debian buster shows missing "default-mta", which is a virtual package.)

apt install $(aptitude search -F%p '?broken-reverse-recommends(?installed)')

(This is summary from few similar questions. Hope it will help someone else.)

mmm
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