apt-cache search finds this stuff in a pkg list located at: /var/lib/apt/lists/ There are other package resources in /var/ at various spots: /var/lib/dpkg/ /var/lib/dpkg/info /var/cache/apt/archives/ At one point I found myself looking at dpkg source, only to find a lot of C++ code that was incomprehensible to my pea sized brain. Then I came to my senses and used strace to just see what these tools do. For example: strace apt-cache search snort 2>&1 | less strace dpkg -l 2>&1 | less strace -f dpkg -l 2>&1 | less Thanks Mike for the note on apt-file, I wasn't aware of that one. Just tried it, and you do a apt-file update, which grabs this Contents-<arch>.gz file and can search on it. It's a big cross reference of file-locations and pkg names. I'm interested in collecting my .deb collection, for reuse on other machines. Whenever you do an apt-get install pkgname, the .deb file gets saved in /var/cache/apt/archive. So say at home I get an install that I like. I could burn a CDROM with .deb files, take it to another machine, and install these. I've done some of this using dpkg-scanpackages. Then add a line to etc/apt/sources.list like: deb file:///mydeb binary/ The biggest problem I ran into was that I want to use this private collection, and also the normal debian collections, favouring the private collection. So I still want this in my sources.list: deb ftp://ftp.cs.unm.edu/mirrors/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib You can use something called apt-pinning to mix and match multiple standard collections(/etc/apt/preferences): Package: * Pin: release a=stable PinPriority: 700 Package: * Pin: release a=unstable PinPriority: 300 The PinPriority tells apt-get install which one to use by default. Then if you want to install something from unstable: apt-get install pkgname/unstable After some googling, looks like my problem might be solved by making a "Release" file to go with my .deb collection and "Packages.gz" file. Well, thats enough chatter from me. _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list