* no longer a wild card in apt?

[kansasnoob]

I haven't found any documentation for this but it used to be you could use * as a wild card to search packages, or maybe I had a bad dream

Anyway, if I'm right about the past, has that changed? Is there a replacement? I have looked at the apt man pages but sometimes something can be right in front of my nose and I don't see it.

[ubfan1]

Well, apt-cache pkgnames never took wild cards, i pipe its output to grep. Other apt-cache commands like show do. so depends upon what you are doing.

[CatKiller]

AFAIK, the apt command has never taken the * character as a wildcard. The older apt-get does, though, so you might be thinking of that.

[Paddy Landau]

Are you perhaps remembering dpkg and dpkg-query? They allow wildcards. Remember to quote the query string. For example:

dpkg-query --list 'libc6*'

[kansasnoob]

So being more specific here's one example. Let's say I wanted to search all packages (both installed and just available) that begin with "linux-generic". If I know the full package name I can:

lance@lance-desktop:~$ apt policy linux-generic
linux-generic:
  Installed: 5.4.0.62.65
  Candidate: 5.4.0.62.65
  Version table:
 *** 5.4.0.62.65 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     5.4.0.26.32 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages
lance@lance-desktop:~$ apt policy linux-generic-hwe-20.04
linux-generic-hwe-20.04:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 5.8.0.38.43~20.04.23
  Version table:
     5.8.0.38.43~20.04.23 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security/main amd64 Packages
     5.4.0.26.32 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages
]

But is there a way to get a search for all packages beginning with "linux-generic" to display? Like there is actually also a 'linux-generic-hwe-18.04':

lance@lance-desktop:~$ apt policy linux-generic-hwe-18.04
linux-generic-hwe-18.04:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 5.4.0.62.65
  Version table:
     5.4.0.62.65 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security/main amd64 Packages
     5.4.0.26.32 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages

Another example would be searching all 'nvidia' packages. Like I might know that my puter uses 'nvidia-340' but I also may have no idea what version of nvidia drivers I have installed. Is there a way to see from TTY what nvidia packages are installed in one fell swoop? Things like this can be very helpful if the UI is broken and you suspect kernel issues or graphics issues and you can only get into the system via TTY, possibly even in a chroot.

A third example might be examining 'grub' although in that case you could use Boot Repair to produce a report and likely find what you needed to know or at least enough to point you in the right direction.

If it's at all possible to get a working UI with the addition of a specific boot parameter my preferred method is just using Synaptic package manger - the lazy man's way out (just my speed)

[CatKiller]

But is there a way to get a search for all packages beginning with "linux-generic" to display? Like there is actually also a 'linux-generic-hwe-18.04'

I would use

aptitude search linux-generic

which will return a list of matching packages and their installed status, followed by

aptitude show <package name>

if I wanted to know something particular about the versions that are installed or available.

[1fallen]

I love aptitude, just have to be cautious mixing with "Apt" installations, not a thing wrong using it for searches though.

[kansasnoob]

Are you perhaps remembering dpkg and dpkg-query? They allow wildcards. Remember to quote the query string. For example:

dpkg-query --list 'libc6*'

Reading the dpkg man pages led me to using this:

dpkg --list | grep <partial-package-name>, eg:

lance@lance-desktop:~$ ls /boot
config-5.4.0-62-generic      memtest86+.elf
config-5.4.0-64-generic      memtest86+_multiboot.bin
grub                         System.map-5.4.0-62-generic
initrd.img                   System.map-5.4.0-64-generic
initrd.img-5.4.0-62-generic  vmlinuz
initrd.img-5.4.0-64-generic  vmlinuz-5.4.0-62-generic
initrd.img.old               vmlinuz-5.4.0-64-generic
memtest86+.bin               vmlinuz.old
lance@lance-desktop:~$ dpkg --list | grep 5.4.0-62
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-62                     5.4.0-62.70                         all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-62-generic             5.4.0-62.70                         amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-5.4.0-62-generic               5.4.0-62.70                         amd64        Signed kernel image generic
ii  linux-modules-5.4.0-62-generic             5.4.0-62.70                         amd64        Linux kernel extra modules for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-62-generic       5.4.0-62.70                         amd64        Linux kernel extra modules for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP

It's not a one-size-fits-all approach but dpkg does get the job done if you're willing to study the man pages, and it does so without the need of installing additional packages.

[Paddy Landau]

It's not a one-size-fits-all approach but dpkg does get the job done if you're willing to study the man pages, and it does so without the need of installing additional packages.

No extra packages required. dpkg-query is installed by default.

Your query doesn't need grep, though: The following two commands will do the same thing.

dpkg --list '*5.4.0-62*'
dpkg-query --list '*5.4.0-62*'

The advantage of dpkg-query over dpkg is that it's explicitly a query, so you avoid accidentally making a change. But you don't need to use it.

[kansasnoob]

No extra packages required. dpkg-query is installed by default.

Your query doesn't need grep, though: The following two commands will do the same thing.

dpkg --list '*5.4.0-62*'
dpkg-query --list '*5.4.0-62*'

The advantage of dpkg-query over dpkg is that it's explicitly a query, so you avoid accidentally making a change. But you don't need to use it.

Sweet! That brings the wildcard into play as I'd inquired about. Also shows available (uninstalled) packages as well.