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Given a package name that is not installed (binutils is installed and binutils-gold is not in my case), how to figure out what binaries it is going to install?

dpkg -l binutils*

Above lists out both and says binutils is installed but binutils-gold is not.

dpkg -L binutils

Above lists out all binaries or atleast all files binutils installs in your system. I want to query similarly binutils-gold before installing it and same for some other packages.

1 Answer 1

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You might want to use a very helpful package: apt-file (that you have to install first, and then apt-file update to fetch the list of files)

apt-file list binutils-gold

will list the files provided by that.

It has also many more helpful features, like a search, to look for a package that provides a file that you need.

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  • Nope. Doesn't work for me. it does not show details for uninstalled packages. May 19, 2016 at 7:22
  • That package binutils-gold in the repositories is just a virtual package, so it does not contain any file. The "idea" is that some packages depend on this binutils-gold, but all its functionality are in binutils, so binutils "declares" I am binutils-gold. If you do not refer to the one in the official repositories, there might be some other problems, so please specify from which repo your are picking it. Look at this manual for more info.
    – dadexix86
    May 19, 2016 at 7:38

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