Log Of All Installed .deb Packages

dpkgdump.sh

#!/bin/bash -e
# dpkgdump.sh
# creates text file with a list of all packages installed by date

TMP0=`mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}"/dpkgdump.col.XXXXXXXXXX`
TMP1=`mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}"/dpkgdump.res.XXXXXXXXXX`

# next append current log
find /var/log -maxdepth 1 -type f -regex ".*\dpkg\.log\.[0-9].gz$" | xargs zcat > $TMP0

# get unzipped logs
find /var/log -maxdepth 1 -type f -regex ".*\dpkg\.log\.?[0-9]?+$" | xargs cat >> $TMP0

# sort text file by date
cat $TMP0 | sort -n > $TMP1 
cat $TMP1

helps examining dpkg log files on foreign systems or when something is messed up etc..

by default the script is writing to stdout after it created the combined and sorted log file. so you can use it with your favorite tools to further examine what's going on.

examples:

./dpkgdump.sh | grep ' installed '

./dpkgdump.sh | grep upgrade | \
                  grep "$2" -A10000000 | \
                  grep "$3" -B10000000 | \
                  awk '{print $4"="$5}'

./dpkgdump.sh | grep ' configure '

further infos:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ListInstalledPackagesByDate