My system is Debian Buster. I would like to track the list of installed packages with git.
When I list installed packages with dpkg -l, where does the list come from?
I found some package info in /var/lib/dpkg/status, but this file has more information than I am interested in. Is there some other place where the package list is stored ?
What is the best file to track, so that I can have overview of installed packages, their versions, or uninstalled packages?
UPDATE
I have tried tracking /var/lib/dpkg/status with git, but the output is very unclear and confusing. There is simply too much information in status. I just need to track the list of installed packages, and their versions. Something like output of dpkg -l.
Is the list of packages, as shown by dpkg -l, stored in some file, or is it generated each time on the fly?
Could I create a git repository in /var/lib/dpkg/ and create some filter in git, so that basically only the output of dpkg -l is beineg tracked? Or perhaps that each time I run git status`, the list is created dynamically ? Or any other solution, I am not sure what possibilities git offers.