check package dependencies
 

Hi

Howto check package dependencies, for example dependencies of task-lxde-desktop?

Looks like 'apt-rdepends' can do that ..
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-che...on-ubuntu.html
""By default, apt-rdepends shows a listing of each dependency a package has.
It will also look at each of these fulfilling packages, and recursively
lists their dependencies.""

( Found with Google .. apt (r)depends .. )

.

Another solution is to use
Or you can use show instead of showpkg

When using apt-cache it would be better to use the depends and rdepends commands instead of show/showpkg.

Why? They show the same things. Granted, show and showpkg display additional information.

If they display different amounts of information, they do not show the same things, do they?
Perhaps that is why TobiSGD recommends them?

They show the same package information. Look, if the reason to use one command over another is simply the format that it's displayed, that's fine, but say so. If one way is technically more/less correct, then I want to know about it. Being as I've never used apt-cache depends/rdepends, I want to know WHY those are the correct commands. Please don't be a smart ass about the response. From what I can tell, they do show the same package dependency information; is the output the same? No.

Actually, they don't show you the same information.
Assume I want information about the dependencies/recommends of package lxde on Debian Squeeze, especially information about display-managers.
show shows me that there is a recommend for either gdm or x-display-manager, showpkg shows me that there is a dependency on gdm and x-display-manager (since it doesn't show you that gdm can provide x-display-manager). So alone these two are not consistent on the info they show.
Now try it with depends instead and it will show you that there is a recommend for either gdm or x-display-manager and that x-display-manager is provided by the packages gdm, gdm3, kdm, slim and xdm (and actually they should add nodm to that list).

The same is true for browsers, show shows a recommendation for chromium-browser, iceweasel or www-browser, showpkg shows dependencies for chromium-browser, iceweasel and www-browser, depends show you that there is a recommendation for either chromium-browser, iceweasel or www-browser and lists all 25 packages that can provide www-browser.

Neither show nor showpkg have a functionality that resembles rdepends.

That are the reasons why I recommended to use depends and rdepends when you are using apt-cache anyways.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my question. :)

Recent versions of synaptic (Wheezy and Sid I guess, I don't think it's on stable) also have a tab with dependencies and dependant packages for every selected package.