How to list all dependency problems?

Question

Like being able to filter broken packages in synaptic, is there a way to list (CLI or GUI) all dependency problems?

Or would dependency issues show up as broken?

I'm confused because each time I install either libgd2-noxpm or libgd2-xpm

I'm getting the same error, with the packages reversed, of course:

dpkg: libgd2-noxpm: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you requested:
 graphviz depends on libgd2-noxpm (>= 2.0.36~rc1~dfsg) | libgd2-xpm (>= 2.0.36~rc1~dfsg); however:
  Package libgd2-noxpm is to be removed.
  Package libgd2-xpm is not installed.
 libgraphviz4 depends on libgd2-noxpm (>= 2.0.36~rc1~dfsg) | libgd2-xpm (>= 2.0.36~rc1~dfsg); however:
  Package libgd2-noxpm is to be removed.
  Package libgd2-xpm is not installed.
 libm17n-0 depends on libgd2-noxpm (>= 2.0.36~rc1~dfsg) | libgd2-xpm (>= 2.0.36~rc1~dfsg); however:
  Package libgd2-noxpm is to be removed.
  Package libgd2-xpm is not installed.
 webalizer depends on libgd2-noxpm (>= 2.0.36~rc1~dfsg) | libgd2-xpm (>= 2.0.36~rc1~dfsg); however:
  Package libgd2-noxpm is to be removed.
  Package libgd2-xpm is not installed.

for example when I try to install libgd2-xpm so it makes sense it would complain because it's not installed until after the errors, but I just want to be able to list all dependency issues to make sure. Any ideas? Or anyone know if dependency issues would in fact show up as broken?

Answer 1

sudo apt-get check is your friend. :)

From the man page:

check

check is a diagnostic tool; it updates the package cache and checks for broken dependencies

For finer checks (half-configured, etc.) you can try sudo dpkg -C instead:

-C, --audit Searches for packages that have been installed only partially on your system. dpkg will suggest what to do with them to get them working.