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Is there a way to find out from which Package-Installation a certain package was installed as Dependency?

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marked as duplicate by muru, Charles Green, KasiyA, bcbc, Eric Carvalho Nov 20 at 17:01


2 Answers 2

up vote 3 down vote accepted

You could check /var/log/apt/history.log for a log entry.

Also, there are several ways to check for reverse dependencies:

apt-cache rdepends packagename

Will show you all packages that depend on packagename. Also those that are not installed, though. Better would be:

aptitude why packagename

This might require to install aptitude Install aptitude

if everything else fails, try to remove the package in question and look at which other packages would be removed because of your decision. Remember to answer "n" to the "are you sure?" question.

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In a Terminal, try aptitude why $package.

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