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sephiroth

Member

From: Fayetteville, NC, USA

Registered: 2025-05-27

Posts: 9  

Using apt to find the package I want...

Okay, I may be getting older, but I do not remember apt being this...   poor at returnign accurate results from a search. Mind you, I last used Debian with version 7. I went to Gentoo when Debian became a systemd distro, not a Linux distro. I still love and use Gentoo, but want something simpler for my daughter to use, so I am trying Devuan out in a VM. I had a slight issue installing, but I'm chalking that one up to the moons not being aligned.

I am in a very minimal install (nothing but the shell and SSH) and want to start installing only what we need. Okay, "apt search" should work, only it doesn't. If I do "apt search firefox" for example, I get things like bleachbit, elpa-atomic-chrome, cbindgen, dh-cargo, and pages of other things that have absolutely nothing to do with Firefox. It's like going to a Ford dealer, asking to see an F-150, and you're shown some teeny-tiny Mini Cooper. In Gentoo I can do "equery list firefox" and it shows me only those packages.

Am I doing something wrong or is this one of those things where you either need to pipe output (which I have zero faith in being accurate right now) to grep, or use some complex regex, or what? I may be over-thinking the complexity here, but searching for a package should be simple, and right now I can't find anything I want.

Last edited by sephiroth (Today 16:41:30)

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,406  

Re: Using apt to find the package I want...

First comment: what you are getting back strongly depends on what you have specified in the sources.list.

Second comment: like you when I run "apt search firefox" I am getting an endless list of packages. Adding a grep might help.

I personally prefer to use "apt list" and sometimes "apt policy" to search for specific packages.

"apt list firefox" returns no output. When you add a * so that you use "apt list firefox*" you will get a longer list of firefox-esr related packages.

And firefox-esr is what is available on Debian/Devuan. If you want the latest firefox, you may need to go to the Mozilla web page.

sephiroth

Member

From: Fayetteville, NC, USA

Registered: 2025-05-27

Posts: 9  

Re: Using apt to find the package I want...

Okay, I did not know about the list parameter. All I can find online are people (various distros, not just Devuan/Debian) complaining about the same thing I am, and solutions that do not appear to work. Indeed, using "apt list *firefox*" returns EXACTLY what I was looking for. Thank you again!

See? Apparently, it's a me-problem this time!

Would using Synaptic be okay after installing my shell stuff and then my desktop? Trying to find a good way of doing things that my daughter can understand.

Last edited by sephiroth (Today 16:57:59)