DOSE-OUTDATED(1)

📦
version 7.0.0 · 9 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 NAME 💖

outdated — the little detective that sniffs out packages you literally cannot install because their dependencies are ancient and crusty 🔍💀

(yeah bestie, this is the manual for dose-outdated, from the DOSE Tools fam 👑)

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

outdated [option] ... file ...

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so picture this: outdated looks inside a Debian package repository and hunts down the packages that can't be installed with respect to that repository because of their inter-package relationships (dependencies, conflicts, ... that whole drama 💅).

but wait, it gets worse. these packages also can't magically become installable in their current version, no matter how the rest of the repository evolves. like, the repo could glow up completely and they'd still be sitting there uninstallable. so the only way for them to ever be installable again is for the package itself to get updated in the repository. periodt. 👑

📥 Input Specification 📥

your input files need to contain stanzas in the format of deb-control(5), separated by one blank line. for example, the Packages files you find on a Debian mirror server, or the ones chilling in the /var/lib/apt/lists/ directory of a Debian system — those are suitable as input, no cap. 🌈

the repository used in the analysis is the union of all packages from the input files. one big blended friend group 🫶

📤 Output Specification 📤

the output of outdated is in the YAML format. aesthetic. ✨

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -f --failure — print the list of broken packages 💀
  • -e --explain — explain the results in more detail, iykyk
  • -s — print a summary of broken packages 📝
  • --dump — dump to standard output in CUDF format the packages that are internally generated, and then exit. mostly useful for debugging purposes 🐛
  • --checkonly package[,package] ... — specifies a list of packages to check. by default, all packages are checked. takes a comma-separated list of package names as argument, each of them possibly with a version constraint.

Example: --checkonly "libc6 , 2ping (>= 1.2.3-1)"

  • -v — enable info / warnings / debug messages. this option may be repeated up to three times in order to increase verbosity 📢 (yes, exactly three. don't get greedy)
  • --progress — display progress bars ⏳
  • -h, --help — display this list of options 🎀

🚦 EXIT CODES 🚦

  • exit codes 0-63 indicate a normal termination of the program ✅
  • codes 64-127 indicate abnormal termination of the program (such as parse errors, I/O errors) 😭
so like, if you get a number bigger than 63, something went wrong bestie. read the error. hydrate. try again. 🍓

🌟 EXAMPLE 🌟

dose3-outdated -f -v /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.fr.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Pietro Abate and Ralf Treinen. iconic duo, honestly. 🫶

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

distcheck(5) challenged(5)

<http://www.mancoosi.org> is the home page of the Mancoosi project. go visit, it's cute 🌐💜

kisses bestie, this page dropped on 2026-07-06, straight from the DOSE Tools girlies, and it's the DOSE-OUTDATED(1) manual 💖✨ slay, stay installable, and may your dependencies never rot 🌸🦋

📦 where this page comes from