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I'm running a Debian testing system with some packages installed from unstable or experimental, using apt pinning.

How can I list all packages that come from unstable or experimental? I'd like to use apt, but I have aptitude and synaptic installed as well.

fixer1234
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enricoferrero
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    The easiest way I found so far relies on the apt-show-version package: `apt-show-version | grep /unstable` or `apt-show-version | grep /experimental`. – enricoferrero May 31 '13 at 11:08

2 Answers2

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One option is to install apt-show-versions. For example, to find packages installed from unstable:

$ apt-show-versions | grep unstable

Also, the following script might be of interest: A script to check how mixed your system is.

debil
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Using aptitude you can run the following command:

$ aptitude versions '~VCURRENT (~Aunstable|~Aexperimental) !~Atesting' --group-by=none

This will list all packages whose currently installed version (~VCURRENT) comes from the unstable or experimental archives (~A) and are not present in the testing archive (!~A). The --group-by=none option serves to produce a more terse output.

dols
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toro2k
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  • For some reason, that doesn't work for me. It gives me a huge list of packages which are most definitely not from unstable or experimental. The apt-show-version method above gives me the correct output. Can somebody else confirm? – enricoferrero May 31 '13 at 17:05
  • Sorry, updated the answer, now should work properly. – toro2k May 31 '13 at 21:03
  • Yes, now it works! – enricoferrero May 31 '13 at 22:02
  • I'm unable to adapt this to filter out packages coming from 'stable' as well, neither to only pick packages coming from 'testing'. I guess I'll never understand how aptitude (or APT for that matter) works. – alecov Feb 23 '19 at 04:27