APT - how to install recommended packages after installing with --no-install-recommends switch?

Question

I installed a few packages with APT using apt-get. I used the --no-install-recommends switch with it to save some disk space.

Now I need to know: how do I install the recommended packages for the already installed programs?

Answer 1

You can run apt-cache show package_you_care_about | grep Recommends.

This will show you all the recommended packages for that particular package. You can then install all the packages there.

For example, with gedit:

apt-cache show gedit | grep Recommends
output: Recommends: gir1.2-gtksource-3.0, zenity, yelp
sudo apt-get install gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 zenity yelp

Answer 2

To find all packages with missing recommended packages:

aptitude search '~RBrecommends:~i'

Answer 3

Get a list of installed packages with missing recommended package:

aptitude search '?installed?broken-recommends'

Get a list of not installed, missing packages that are recommended by installed packages - "missing recommends":

aptitude search '?broken-reverse-recommends(?installed)'

Get which package is recommending a specific "missing recommend":

aptitude search '?installed?broken-recommends(MISSING_PKG_NAME)'

One liner: For all "missing recommends", get by which packages are recommended:

for p in $(aptitude search -F%p '?broken-reverse-recommends(?installed)'); do echo $p; aptitude search "?installed?broken-recommends($p)"; done

You can find "missing recommends" in Synaptic package manager. (As I see, Synaptic shows also the missing Suggested packages.)

You can install all "missing recommends" with one command but I do not recommend it! First, review the list of packages before install. (For example, fresh install of debian buster shows missing "default-mta", which is a virtual package.)

apt install $(aptitude search -F%p '?broken-reverse-recommends(?installed)')

(This is summary from few similar questions. Hope it will help someone else.)