How to check the version before installing a package using apt-get

Question

I m thinking to install hylafax  version 5 5 4 which was release last month on my Debian PC  I checked dpkg -l   grep  quot hylafax quot  and found out that the current version is 5 5 3  Then I checked apt-cache search hylafax and saw the packages are available  but I can t see any version number  How can I find the version of packages available in the apt-get

User · Answer

Linux Mint  Debian 9  Ubuntu 16 04 and older   Short info   apt policy  lt package name gt    Detailed info  With Description and Depends    apt show  lt package name gt

User · Answer

Also  according to the man page   apt-cache showpkg  lt package name gt    can also be used to         display information about the packages listed on the command line  Remaining arguments are package              names  The available versions and reverse dependencies of each package listed are listed  as well as forward              dependencies for each version  Forward  normal  dependencies are those packages upon which the package in              question depends  reverse dependencies are those packages that depend upon the package in question  Thus               forward dependencies must be satisfied for a package  but reverse dependencies need not be    Ex   apt-cache policy conky  conky    Installed   none    Candidate  1 10 3-1   Version table       1 10 3-1 500         500 http   us archive ubuntu com ubuntu yakkety universe amd64 Packages         500 http   us archive ubuntu com ubuntu yakkety universe i386 Packages

User · Answer

on debian    apt list --upgradable   gives the list with package  version to be upgraded  and actual version of the package   result     base-files stable 8 deb8u8 amd64  upgradable from  8 deb8u7  bind9-host stable 1 9 9 5 dfsg-9 deb8u11 amd64  upgradable from  1 9 9 5 dfsg-9 deb8u9  ca-certificates stable 20141019 deb8u3 all  upgradable from  20141019 deb8u2  certbot jessie-backports 0 10 2-1 bpo8 1 all  upgradable from  0 8 1-2 bpo8 1  dnsutils stable 1 9 9 5 dfsg-9 deb8u11 amd64  upgradable from  1 9 9 5 dfsg-9 deb8u9

User · Answer

apt policy  lt package gt    for short

User · Answer

OK  I found it  apt-cache policy  lt package name gt  will show the version details  It also shows which version is currently installed and which versions are available to install  For example  apt-cache policy hylafax

User · Answer

apt-cache policy  lt package-name gt     apt-cache policy redis-server redis-server    Installed   none    Candidate  2 2 8 4-2   Version table       2 2 8 4-2 0         500 http   us archive ubuntu com ubuntu  trusty universe amd64 Packages   apt-get install -s  lt package-name gt     apt-get install -s redis-server NOTE  This is only a simulation        apt-get needs root privileges for real execution        Keep also in mind that locking is deactivated        so don t depend on the relevance to the real current situation  Reading package lists    Done Building dependency tree        Reading state information    Done The following extra packages will be installed    libjemalloc1 redis-tools The following NEW packages will be installed    libjemalloc1 redis-server redis-tools 0 upgraded  3 newly installed  0 to remove and 3 not upgraded  Inst libjemalloc1  3 5 1-2 Ubuntu 14 04 trusty  amd64   Inst redis-tools  2 2 8 4-2 Ubuntu 14 04 trusty  amd64   Inst redis-server  2 2 8 4-2 Ubuntu 14 04 trusty  amd64   Conf libjemalloc1  3 5 1-2 Ubuntu 14 04 trusty  amd64   Conf redis-tools  2 2 8 4-2 Ubuntu 14 04 trusty  amd64   Conf redis-server  2 2 8 4-2 Ubuntu 14 04 trusty  amd64     apt-cache show  lt package-name gt     apt-cache show redis-server Package  redis-server Priority  optional Section  universe misc Installed-Size  744 Maintainer  Ubuntu Developers  lt ubuntu-devel-discuss lists ubuntu com gt  Original-Maintainer  Chris Lamb  lt lamby debian org gt  Architecture  amd64 Source  redis Version  2 2 8 4-2 Depends  libc6   gt   2 14   libjemalloc1   gt   2 1 1   redis-tools    2 2 8 4-2   adduser Filename  pool universe r redis redis-server 2 8 4-2 amd64 deb Size  267446 MD5sum  066f3ce93331b876b691df69d11b7e36 SHA1  f7ffbf228cc10aa6ff23ecc16f8c744928d7782e SHA256  2d273574f134dc0d8d10d41b5eab54114dfcf8b716bad4e6d04ad8452fe1627d Description-en  Persistent key-value database with network interface  Redis is a key-value database in a similar vein to memcache but the dataset  is non-volatile  Redis additionally provides native support for atomically  manipulating and querying data structures such as lists and sets      The dataset is stored entirely in memory and periodically flushed to disk  Description-md5  9160ed1405585ab844f8750a9305d33f Homepage  http   redis io  Bugs  https   bugs launchpad net ubuntu  filebug Origin  Ubunt   dpkg -l  lt package-name gt     dpkg -l nginx Desired Unknown Install Remove Purge Hold   Status Not Inst Conf-files Unpacked halF-conf Half-inst trig-aWait Trig-pend    Err   none  Reinst-required  Status Err  uppercase bad      Name                                     Version                   Architecture              Description    -                                        -                         -                         -                                                                                      ii  nginx                                    1 6 2-1 trusty            amd64                     high performance web server

User · Answer

Also  the apt-show-versions package  installed separately  parses dpkg information about what is installed and tells you if packages are up to date   Example      sudo apt-show-versions --regex chrome google-chrome-stable stable upgradeable from 32 0 1700 102-1 to 35 0 1916 114-1 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome quantal-security uptodate 1 0 3 1-0ubuntu1 12 10 1

User · Answer

You can also just simply do the regular apt-get update and then  as per the manual  do   apt-get -V upgrade       -V  Show verbose version numbers   Which will show you the current package vs the one which will be upgraded in a format similar to the one bellow      sudo apt-get -V upgrade Reading package lists    Done Building dependency tree Reading state information    Done Calculating upgrade    Done The following packages will be upgraded     curl  7 38 0-4 deb8u14   gt  7 38 0-4 deb8u15     php5  5 6 40 dfsg-0 deb8u2   gt  5 6 40 dfsg-0 deb8u3  2 upgraded  0 newly installed  0 to remove and 0 not upgraded  Need to get 12 0 MB of archives  After this operation  567 kB of additional disk space will be used  Do you want to continue   Y n

User · Answer

As posted somewhere else  this works  too   apt-cache madison  lt package name gt

User · Answer

The following might work well enough   aptitude versions  hylafax    See more in aptitude 8

[debian] How to check the version before installing a package using apt-get?

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