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You may not know the specific package name for software you wish to install. Say you want to install vnc client viewer but you don't know the name of a package for it. You would open a console as root or use sudo and type: apt-cache search vnc apt-cache search vnc|grep viewerThis would return a list of packages available and that refer to the word vnc. Maybe not much different than apt-cache pkgnames|grep vncCan be used to clean things up better. Can be used to clean things up better. == is a particular package installed? == Check if a package is installed or not in DEB based systems. For the example lets check to see if postfix is installed. dpkg -s postfix This will show additional information if it (the package) is installed including the version information, size, keys, a description, and more. Another option is 'dpkg-query' dpkg-query -l postfix Output is tab formatted and also includes some information although not as verbose. == show installed packages == This can't be accomplished with the apt-get command. Youcan revert to dpkg. dpkg-query -lor dpkg -l dpkg-query -W -f '${status} ${package} ${version}\n' | sed -n 's/^install ok installed //p' dpkg --get-selections dpkg --get-selections | sed 's:install$::'You can make a shell script called 'apt-installed' and put whatever format you like. What about 'apt-cache'? apt-cache pkgnamesList the names of all package - more than whats installed, apt-cache creates a repository of information about the packages that are avaiable from your sources list, so this way you can search packages and information about it. It is not a means to show only what is installed.