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📛 NAME

chdist - script to easily play with several distributions

📋 SYNOPSIS

chdist [options] [command] [command parameters]

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
Create a new distribution tree	chdist create DIST [URL RELEASE SECTIONS]	Prepare a new tree named DIST
Update package lists	chdist apt DIST update	Run apt-get update inside the tree
Show package information	chdist apt-cache DIST show PACKAGE	Display package details from APT cache
Compare package versions	chdist compare-packages DIST1 DIST2	List versions of packages in several distributions
Compare versions with dpkg	chdist compare-versions DIST1 DIST2	Show where the package is newer
List available distributions	chdist list	List all created distribution trees

📖 DESCRIPTION

chdist is a rewrite of what used to be known as 'MultiDistroTools' (or mdt). Its use is to create 'APT trees' for several distributions, making it easy to query the status of packages in other distribution without using chroots, for instance.

⚙️ OPTIONS

• -h, --help Provide a usage message.
• -d, --data-dir DIR Choose data directory (default: ~/.chdist/).
• -a, --arch ARCH Choose architecture (default: `dpkg --print-architecture`).
• --version Display version information.

🛠️ COMMANDS

• create DIST [URL RELEASE SECTIONS]

  Prepare a new tree named DIST

• apt DIST <update|source|show|showsrc|...>

  Run apt inside DIST

• apt-get DIST <update|source|...>

  Run apt-get inside DIST

• apt-cache DIST <show|showsrc|...>

  Run apt-cache inside DIST

• apt-file DIST <update|search|...>

  Run apt-file inside DIST

• apt-rdepends DIST [...]

  Run apt-rdepends inside DIST

• aptitude DIST [...]

  Run aptitude inside DIST

• src2bin DIST SRCPKG

  List binary packages for SRCPKG in DIST

• bin2src DIST BINPKG

  List source package for BINPKG in DIST

• compare-packages DIST1 DIST2 [DIST3, ...]

  List versions of packages in several DISTributions

• compare-bin-packages DIST1 DIST2 [DIST3, ...]

  List versions of binary packages in several DISTributions

• compare-versions DIST1 DIST2

  Same as compare-packages, but also runs dpkg --compare-versions and display where the package is newer.

• compare-bin-versions DIST1 DIST2

  Same as compare-bin-packages, but also runs dpkg --compare-versions and display where the package is newer.

• compare-src-bin-packages DIST

  Compare sources and binaries for DIST

• compare-src-bin-versions DIST

  Same as compare-src-bin-packages, but also run dpkg --compare-versions and display where the package is newer

• grep-dctrl-packages DIST [...]

  Run grep-dctrl on *_Packages inside DIST

• grep-dctrl-sources DIST [...]

  Run grep-dctrl on *_Sources inside DIST

• list

  List available DISTs

©️ COPYRIGHT

This program is copyright 2007 by Lucas Nussbaum and Luk Claes. This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.

It is licensed under the terms of the GPL, either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Debian Utilities 2026-03-04 CHDIST(1)

📛 NAME 📋 SYNOPSIS 🚀 Quick Reference 📖 DESCRIPTION ⚙️ OPTIONS 🛠️ COMMANDS ©️ COPYRIGHT