dpkg-vendor(1)

💅 dpkg-vendor(1) — the dpkg suite's own vendor gossip girl

okay so bestie, you're reading the manual page for dpkg-vendor, straight out of the dpkg suite ✨ she's a little tool with one job and she does it flawlessly.

🌸 NAME 🌸

dpkg-vendor — literally just queries information about distribution vendors 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

dpkg-vendor [option...] command

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

dpkg-vendor is the tool you use to query info about the vendors listed in /etc/dpkg/origins. And /etc/dpkg/origins/default? That one holds the info about the current vendor 👑

The origin files are basically the vendor's little profile card — metadata about specific vendors, like their URL or where to file bug reports 🎀. They get used for two main-character reasons:

• to determine the behavior of tools and the resulting contents during package builds targeting a specific vendor
• to describe the provenance of packages

Packages can explicitly declare their vendor by including an Origin field. And if a package doesn't have that field? Then its vendor is assumed to be the one pointed to by the default origin symbolic link. no cap 💅

That same default symbolic link is also used to denote the origin of the current installation managed by dpkg — whether that's a full distribution, or an overlay on top of an existing base system that contains either no packaging system or a native one. lowkey iconic.

This program was introduced in dpkg 1.15.1. vintage, but make it slay 🎀

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👑 COMMANDS 👑

• --is vendor — exits with 0 if the current vendor is vendor. Otherwise exits with 1. that's it, that's the vibe check ✨
• --derives-from vendor — exits with 0 if the current vendor distribution is a derivative of vendor, otherwise exits with 1. It uses the Parent field to browse all ancestors of the current vendor. it's giving family tree energy 🌈
• --query field — prints on standard output the value of the vendor-specific field for the current vendor 🫶
• --help — shows the usage message and exits 💖
• --version — shows the version and exits ⭐

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• --vendor vendor — assumes the current vendor is vendor instead of discovering it with the DEB_VENDOR environment variable or /etc/dpkg/origins/default. you're just telling her who's who, she's not gonna argue 💅

🧚 ENVIRONMENT 🧚

• DEB_VENDOR — this setting defines the current vendor. If it's not set, it will discover the current vendor by reading /etc/dpkg/origins/default. iykyk 🌸
• DPKG_COLORS — sets the color mode. The currently accepted values are: auto (default), always and never. 🎨

Supported since dpkg 1.18.5.

• DPKG_NLS — if set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native Language Support, also known as internationalization (or i18n) support. The accepted values are: 0 and 1 (default). 🌍

Supported since dpkg 1.19.0.

🍓 FILES 🍓

Packaging support 💖

• /usr/share/dpkg/vendor.mk — a Makefile snippet that sets the current vendor and its parent into variables, and provides make macros to check for derivatives. 🛠️

Supported since dpkg 1.16.1.

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

deb-origin(5) — go read that one too, bestie 🫶

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okay that's the whole page, you ate that 💅✨ no notes.

and finally, the cute little sign-off at the bottom: this beauty is version 1.23.11-dirty, dated 2026-09-09, and yes — it's dpkg-vendor(1) again, because she always comes back to say hi 🎀🦋💖