Last week Aaron asked me if I knew the reason behind the latest kernel update, or if I knew where to find the changelog. I poked around a bit and found that Aptitude, the command-line package management tool, has a changelog option. If you’d like to see the changelog for a package before you update, or even after you’ve updated, you can do so with Aptitude.
Viewing the Changelog From The Terminal
Taking a look at the changelog for a package can be done at the command line by using:
aptitude changelog <packagename>
This only works for officially supported packages, so it’ll complain if you try it against something from a PPA, but this still covers quite a few packages. So, if you’ve ever wondered the reason behind the update, you can check out the changelog and take a look!
Viewing the Changelog From Synaptic
The same functionality is available within Synaptic as well. Navigate to:
“System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager”
Find the package you’re interested in using the “Search” button and then select “Package > Download Changelog” from the Synaptic File menu.
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