How to view a list of packages that were manually installed without their dependancies

Question

How do I see a list of packages I manually (really manually, as in I typed them in) installed?

I want to exclude packages that were installed as a result of being dependencies of other packages that I manually typed in.

For example, if I ran the command:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

and as a result mysql-common was installed, I want to only see mysql-server in the list and not mysql-common.

I've searched for an answer and found many that were close but not exactly what I want.

score 19 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 26 '13 at 12:15

19

It's much better to use apt-mark tool:

apt-mark showmanual

This is exactly what you want. You also can mark packages as manually installed or not and hold the packages on fixed versions.

answered Jul 26 '13 at 12:15

Aleksei

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 14 '21 at 15:22

9

That do what you want:

cat /var/log/apt/history.log | grep -E 'apt(-get)? install '

edited Oct 14 '21 at 15:22

rofrol

answered Oct 03 '12 at 01:44

wojox

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 23 '17 at 15:54

0

I've built a script using the idea of wojox. It creates file in your home directory with all packages in it.

answered Sep 23 '17 at 15:54

FK-VH

3 Answers3