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Searching for short package names (e.g. at or mc) in aptitude (not at command line but within the interactive tool) is annoying because I don't know a trick to avoid getting hits for plenty of packages that have these letters somewhere in their name when all I want to do is find at or mc themselves. (I have to jump through stuff like ttf-liberation or swat and many more when all I want is at and nothing but at.)

There must be a trick to solve this annoying issue, because I can't be the first person who gets overwhelmed by the large number of results...

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  • To get information about the at package:

    aptitude show at

  • To search for a literal at:

    aptitude search ^at$

    (^ is a regular expression character that indicated a match from the beginning, $ the end)

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Awesome. The expression ^at$ in the second command you mention works also within the search field of aptitude's interactive tool. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a lot. xkcd.com/208 heh. – zebonaut Jun 17 '11 at 20:28
I've now one Ki reputation :D And regular expressions is one of the most useful inventions imo – Lekensteyn Jun 17 '11 at 20:33
Dank je wel voor de quick and good answer! – zebonaut Jun 17 '11 at 20:36
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