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I can't re-install packages that fulfill at least one of the following criteria:

  • Custom-made packages
  • Packages created by alien package (e.g. alien --install pkg.rpm)
  • Packages installed from some repository that is no longer available
  • Packages installed from some repository, but is no longer available there
  • Packages whose repositories have been removed from "/etc/apt/sources.list"

How do I list any of these packages?

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2 Answers 2

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Aptitude lists them under “Obsolete and Locally Created Packages”. The corresponding search pattern is ?obsolete or ~o.

aptitude search '?obsolete'
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You should be able to list packages installed via alien just by running rpm -qa.

For Debian packages, maybe some combination of apt-cache policy and apt-get autoclean can help?

   autoclean
       Like clean, autoclean clears out the local repository of retrieved
       package files. The difference is that it only removes package files
       that can no longer be downloaded, and are largely useless.
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  • autoclean doesn't work as advertised; I guess I must file a bug Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 11:51
  • Does it work after doing apt-get update? Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 11:52
  • The command rpm -qa doesn't return anything, even though I have packages installed via alien; Has it worked for you before? Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 11:52
  • Yes, I did an update. Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 11:53
  • I'm not sure. It would make sense if it worked, but I don't have any packages installed using alien that I can test with. Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 11:53

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