Lets see what files are missing from packages that are partially installed. Note this will not work on packages that are not at least part way installed (they need to be listed in dpkg -l output). This is building off the article here: http://www.infotinks.com/debian-see-all-files-from-packages-with-word-in-them/

Sometimes you get a package thats halfway installed, or is missing some files. It has a weird status when you run dpkg -l (here is a diagnosis: https://linuxprograms.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/status-dpkg-list/). Here is an exerpt (in green & italics).

First character: The possible value for the first character. The first character signifies the desired state, like we (or some user) is marking the package for installation

1. u: Unknown (an unknown state)
2. i: Install (marked for installation)
3. r: Remove (marked for removal)
4. p: Purge (marked for purging)
5. h: Hold

Second Character: The second character signifies the current state, whether it is installed or not. The possible values are

1. n: Not- The package is not installed
2. i: Inst – The package is successfully installed
3. c: Cfg-files – Configuration files are present
4. u: Unpacked- The package is stilled unpacked
5. f: Failed-cfg- Failed to remove configuration files
6. h: Half-inst- The package is only partially installed
7. W: trig-aWait
8. t: Trig-pend

Let’s move to the third character
Third Character: This corresponds to the error state. The possible value include

1. R: Reinst-required The package must be installed.

So lets say the package less (that program that reads files page by page) is not listed as “ii” (installed well). Here is how we find out whats missing. Just change PKG to less or whatever package your curious about (note it will look for all packages that have the word “less” in them. So it will analyze packages that are named “lessloss” which could be something completely unrelated – therefore just ignore the output of lessloss – the output is has seperators to see which package is being analyzed).

# (PKG="less"; dpkg -l | grep $PKG | awk '{print $2}' | xargs -I %% /bin/bash -c 'echo "---- %% ----"; dpkg -L "%%" | xargs -I @@ /bin/bash -c "[[ -f '@@' ]] && ls -lisah '@@' || ( [[ -d '@@' ]] && echo FOLDER EXISTS @@ || ( [[ -e '@@' ]] && echo EXISTS NOT-FILE NOT-FOLDER @@ || echo DOESNT EXIST @@))"' | nl > /tmp/${PKG}.pktxt; cat /tmp/${PKG}.pktxt; )

Example output for package less (I purposely deleted the symlink /usr/bin/lesspipe and deleted the file /usr/share/man/man1/lesspipe.1.gz. mv /usr/share/man/man1/lesspipe.1.gz /tmp/lesspipe.1.gz; rm -f /usr/bin/lesspipe; ), lets see how it looks:

     1  ---- less ----
     2  FOLDER EXISTS /.
     3  FOLDER EXISTS /bin
     4  50989794 152K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 150K Jun 10  2012 /bin/less
     5  50989796 16K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16K Jun 10  2012 /bin/lesskey
     6  50989795 12K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 11K Jun 10  2012 /bin/lessecho
     7  50989797 8.0K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7.6K Jun 10  2012 /bin/lesspipe
     8  FOLDER EXISTS /usr
     9  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/bin
    10  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share
    11  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc
    12  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc/less
    13  4332989 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0K Jan 22  2008 /usr/share/doc/less/copyright
    14  4332987 12K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9.6K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/doc/less/changelog.Debian.gz
    15  4332985 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.1K Oct 22  2007 /usr/share/doc/less/LESSOPEN
    16  4332988 12K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.5K Jun  9  2011 /usr/share/doc/less/changelog.gz
    17  4332986 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 401 Jul  3  2009 /usr/share/doc/less/README.Debian
    18  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/man
    19  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/man/man1
    20  4594974 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.6K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/lesskey.1.gz
    21  4594973 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 568 Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/lessecho.1.gz
    22  4594972 20K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/less.1.gz
    23  DOESNT EXIST /usr/share/man/man1/lesspipe.1.gz
    24  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib
    25  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib/mime
    26  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib/mime/packages
    27  4208356 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 94 Oct 22  2007 /usr/lib/mime/packages/less
    28  50989704 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jun 10  2012 /bin/lessfile -> lesspipe
    29  4201355 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/less -> /bin/less
    30  4201357 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/lessfile -> /bin/lesspipe
    31  4201358 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/lesskey -> /bin/lesskey
    32  4201356 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/lessecho -> /bin/lessecho
    33  DOESNT EXIST /usr/bin/lesspipe
    34  DOESNT EXIST /usr/share/man/man1/lessfile.1.gz
    35  ---- libflac8:amd64 ----
    36  FOLDER EXISTS /.
    37  FOLDER EXISTS /usr
    38  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib
    39  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
    40  4196262 316K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 313K Nov 29  2014 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libFLAC.so.8.2.0
    41  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share
    42  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc
    43  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc/libflac8
    44  4331450 12K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.5K Nov 29  2014 /usr/share/doc/libflac8/changelog.Debian.gz
    45  4331451 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.0K Nov 29  2014 /usr/share/doc/libflac8/copyright
    46  4196263 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Nov 29  2014 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libFLAC.so.8 -> libFLAC.so.8.2.0
    47  ---- libwavpack1:amd64 ----
    48  FOLDER EXISTS /.
    49  FOLDER EXISTS /usr
    50  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share
    51  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc
    52  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc/libwavpack1
    53  4460002 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.2K Apr  1  2012 /usr/share/doc/libwavpack1/changelog.Debian.gz
    54  4460004 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0K Dec  5  2011 /usr/share/doc/libwavpack1/copyright
    55  4460003 8.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4.9K Nov 30  2009 /usr/share/doc/libwavpack1/changelog.gz
    56  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib
    57  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
    58  4212874 164K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 163K Apr  1  2012 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libwavpack.so.1.1.4
    59  4212443 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Apr  1  2012 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libwavpack.so.1 -> libwavpack.so.1.1.4

How to read output:

• Each section seperated by “—- package —-” are the files and folders for that file (as received from dpkg -L, capital L)
• Notice that files that exist have the full “ls -lisah” type of listing.
• Folders that exist say “FOLDER EXISTS“.
• Weird files that are not folder and not regular files will list as EXISTS NOT-FILE NOT-FOLDER.
• When something (file, empty file, folder, symlink, hardlink, etc…) doesnt exist it will list as DOESNT EXIST

NOTE: that PKG=”less” selected the package “less”, and “libflac8” and “libwavpack1.” Its because libflac8 and libwavpack1 list less in their description column in the dpkg -l output. I made the package selection very ambiguous. If you want it less ambigous and only select packages that have less in the name of the package, use this

# (PKG="less"; dpkg -l | awk '{print $2}' | grep $PKG | xargs -I %% /bin/bash -c 'echo "---- %% ----"; dpkg -L "%%" | xargs -I @@ /bin/bash -c "[[ -f '@@' ]] && ls -lisah '@@' || ( [[ -d '@@' ]] && echo FOLDER EXISTS @@ || ( [[ -e '@@' ]] && echo EXISTS NOT-FILE NOT-FOLDER @@ || echo DOESNT EXIST @@))"' | nl > /tmp/${PKG}.pktxt; cat /tmp/${PKG}.pktxt; )

Now the output is only:

    1  ---- less ----
     2  FOLDER EXISTS /.
     3  FOLDER EXISTS /bin
     4  50989794 152K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 150K Jun 10  2012 /bin/less
     5  50989796 16K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16K Jun 10  2012 /bin/lesskey
     6  50989795 12K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 11K Jun 10  2012 /bin/lessecho
     7  50989797 8.0K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7.6K Jun 10  2012 /bin/lesspipe
     8  FOLDER EXISTS /usr
     9  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/bin
    10  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share
    11  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc
    12  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc/less
    13  4332989 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0K Jan 22  2008 /usr/share/doc/less/copyright
    14  4332987 12K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9.6K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/doc/less/changelog.Debian.gz
    15  4332985 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.1K Oct 22  2007 /usr/share/doc/less/LESSOPEN
    16  4332988 12K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.5K Jun  9  2011 /usr/share/doc/less/changelog.gz
    17  4332986 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 401 Jul  3  2009 /usr/share/doc/less/README.Debian
    18  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/man
    19  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/man/man1
    20  4594974 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.6K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/lesskey.1.gz
    21  4594973 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 568 Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/lessecho.1.gz
    22  4594972 20K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/less.1.gz
    23  DOESNT EXIST /usr/share/man/man1/lesspipe.1.gz
    24  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib
    25  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib/mime
    26  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib/mime/packages
    27  4208356 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 94 Oct 22  2007 /usr/lib/mime/packages/less
    28  50989704 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jun 10  2012 /bin/lessfile -> lesspipe
    29  4201355 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/less -> /bin/less
    30  4201357 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/lessfile -> /bin/lesspipe
    31  4201358 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/lesskey -> /bin/lesskey
    32  4201356 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/lessecho -> /bin/lessecho
    33  DOESNT EXIST /usr/bin/lesspipe
    34  DOESNT EXIST /usr/share/man/man1/lessfile.1.gz

Lets look at the package “less” (Everything below “—- less —-” ). Notice the lines that start with DOESNT EXIST (we could grep for “DOESNT”)

    23  DOESNT EXIST /usr/share/man/man1/lesspipe.1.gz
    33  DOESNT EXIST /usr/bin/lesspipe
    34  DOESNT EXIST /usr/share/man/man1/lessfile.1.gz

We see that these files (they could be anything, symlinks, folder, regular file, socket file, whatever) dont exist. To find out what they are its best to go online and probably best to delete (remove and purge, and possibly repeat to fully remove )and install the package again – or just reinstall the package.

SIDENOTE: in my case I just recreated the symlink and put the lesspipe.1.gz file back to where it should be ln -s /bin/lesspipe /usr/bin/lesspipe; mv /tmp/lesspipe.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/lesspipe.1.gz; And now the complete “less” package has this output, notice everything EXISTS.

# (PKG="less"; dpkg -l | awk '{print $2}' | grep $PKG | xargs -I %% /bin/bash -c 'echo "---- %% ----"; dpkg -L "%%" | xargs -I @@ /bin/bash -c "[[ -f '@@' ]] && ls -lisah '@@' || ( [[ -d '@@' ]] && echo FOLDER EXISTS @@ || ( [[ -e '@@' ]] && echo EXISTS NOT-FILE NOT-FOLDER @@ || echo DOESNT EXIST @@))"' | nl > /tmp/${PKG}.pktxt; cat /tmp/${PKG}.pktxt; )
     1  ---- less ----
     2  FOLDER EXISTS /.
     3  FOLDER EXISTS /bin
     4  50989794 152K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 150K Jun 10  2012 /bin/less
     5  50989796 16K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16K Jun 10  2012 /bin/lesskey
     6  50989795 12K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 11K Jun 10  2012 /bin/lessecho
     7  50989797 8.0K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7.6K Jun 10  2012 /bin/lesspipe
     8  FOLDER EXISTS /usr
     9  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/bin
    10  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share
    11  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc
    12  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/doc/less
    13  4332989 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0K Jan 22  2008 /usr/share/doc/less/copyright
    14  4332987 12K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9.6K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/doc/less/changelog.Debian.gz
    15  4332985 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.1K Oct 22  2007 /usr/share/doc/less/LESSOPEN
    16  4332988 12K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.5K Jun  9  2011 /usr/share/doc/less/changelog.gz
    17  4332986 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 401 Jul  3  2009 /usr/share/doc/less/README.Debian
    18  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/man
    19  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/share/man/man1
    20  4594974 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.6K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/lesskey.1.gz
    21  4594973 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 568 Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/lessecho.1.gz
    22  4594972 20K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/less.1.gz
    23  4594975 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.2K Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/lesspipe.1.gz
    24  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib
    25  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib/mime
    26  FOLDER EXISTS /usr/lib/mime/packages
    27  4208356 4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 94 Oct 22  2007 /usr/lib/mime/packages/less
    28  50989704 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jun 10  2012 /bin/lessfile -> lesspipe
    29  4201355 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/less -> /bin/less
    30  4201357 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/lessfile -> /bin/lesspipe
    31  4201358 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/lesskey -> /bin/lesskey
    32  4201356 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Jun 10  2012 /usr/bin/lessecho -> /bin/lessecho
    33  4195315 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Mar  1 17:09 /usr/bin/lesspipe -> /bin/lesspipe
    34  4592163 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Jun 10  2012 /usr/share/man/man1/lessfile.1.gz -> lesspipe.1.gz

The end.