How to see the Current State of package (Ubuntu)?

Two commands can be used to see the current state of a package.

1. dpkg
2. dpkg-query

Let’s assume that the package vim is currently installed.

Current state of a package Using dpkg

dpkg –list can be used to know the status of a package.

$ dpkg --list vim

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                                 Version                              Description
+++-====================================-====================================-========================================================================================
ii  vim                                  2:7.2.330-1ubuntu3                   Vi IMproved - enhanced vi editor

As you can see the current state is ii. If you know how to interpret the status, you can be sure that the vim package is currently installed.

Let’s see the status of a package which is removed (configuration file is not removed)

$ dpkg --list usplash
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                                 Version                              Description
+++-====================================-====================================-========================================================================================
rc  usplash                              0.5.49                               Userspace bootsplash utility

The state is rc, the package is removed, but the config files are not removed.

Current state of a package Using dpkg-query

Let’s explore more about a package using dpkg-query. dpkg-query gives more elaborate information about a package.

$ dpkg-query -s vim

Package: vim
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: editors
Installed-Size: 1672
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers 
Architecture: i386
Version: 2:7.2.330-1ubuntu3
Replaces: vim-common (<< 1:7.1-175+1)
Provides: editor
Depends: vim-common (= 2:7.2.330-1ubuntu3), vim-runtime (= 2:7.2.330-1ubuntu3), libacl1 (>= 2.2.11-1), libc6 (>= 2.11), libgpm2 (>= 1.20.4), libncurses5 (>= 5.6+20071006-3), libpython2.6 (>= 2.6), libselinux1 (>= 1.32)
Suggests: ctags, vim-doc, vim-scripts
Conflicts: vim-common (<< 1:7.1-175+1)
Description: Vi IMproved - enhanced vi editor
 Vim is an almost compatible version of the UNIX editor Vi.
 .
 Many new features have been added: multi level undo, syntax
 highlighting, command line history, on-line help, filename
 completion, block operations, folding, Unicode support, etc.
 .
 This package contains a version of vim compiled with a rather
 standard set of features.  This package does not provide a GUI
 version of Vim.  See the other vim-* packages if you need more
 (or less).
Homepage: http://www.vim.org/
Original-Maintainer: Debian Vim Maintainers

Our main focus of line is

Status: install ok installed

This clearly signifies that the package is installed. Let’s see an example for a status “rc”

$ dpkg-query -s usplash

Package: usplash
Status: deinstall ok config-files
Priority: optional
Section: misc
Installed-Size: 220
Maintainer: Ubuntu Core Developers 
Architecture: i386
Version: 0.5.49
Config-Version: 0.5.49
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.4), libusplash0 (>= 0.5.34), debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0, initramfs-tools (>= 0.92bubuntu50), upstart (>= 0.6.3-4)
Recommends: usplash-theme-ubuntu | usplash-theme
Breaks: gdm (<< 2.28.0-0ubuntu8), kdm (<< 4:4.3.1-0ubuntu14)
Conffiles:
 /etc/console-tools/config.d/usplash 513c621bee5c1b6d3f6d87c5a60e214a
 /etc/kbd/config.d/usplash 513c621bee5c1b6d3f6d87c5a60e214a
 /etc/init/usplash.conf d10375f18e767272acfaef49bedc8752
Description: Userspace bootsplash utility
 Usplash is a userspace application that uses the Linux framebuffer interface
 to draw a splash screen at boot. It has a companion utility that is able to
 send commands to usplash, allowing information about the bootup sequence to
 be displayed in a more attractive way.

Let's focus on the line

Status: deinstall ok config-files

The files are marked for removal, but the config files are still present in the system. Refer status of packages.

Tags: Dpkg, dpkg ii, dpkg list, dpkg rc, dpkg-query, Ubuntu, ubuntu package, ubuntu package current status