On Fri, Sep 21, 2001 at 07:47:51PM -0400, Rick Pasotto wrote: > On Fri, Sep 21, 2001 at 03:53:35PM -0700, Erik Steffl wrote: > > Colin Watson wrote: > > > 'apt-get update' doesn't update dpkg's available file. Use 'dselect > > > update' instead, which does 'apt-get update' and then merges it with > > > dpkg's records. > > > > > > Also, 'dpkg -l' looks in dpkg's status file, which doesn't necessarily > > > record all uninstalled packages unless you use dselect on a regular > > > basis. It'll record installed packages reliably, though. > > > > thanks for explanation, > > > > is there any way to have correct info about system (installed and > > available packages and their status) without using deselect? > > After reading the above I ran 'dselect update' and found that it works > just like 'apt-get update' and doesn't go into the normal dselect > program.
Exactly. As far as 'dpkg -l' output goes, I don't think anything else necessarily updates the status file with uninstalled packages. It's not impossible that dselect might stop doing this in the future, in fact (not that I'm a dpkg developer), since having a huge status file slows things down a lot. There are lots of other tools to look at available but not installed packages, though - you could munge the output of 'dpkg -p <package>' or grep-available. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]