Posted Jul 30, 2008
Explore Debian dependencies with debtree
debtree is a nifty little hack that builds package dependency diagrams.
A deeper-than-reasonable graph of the dependencies of weblion-plone-stack
Tired of error-pronely tracking stuff in OmniGraffle by hand, I went looking for something to automatically diagram out my Debian package dependencies. 10 minutes later, debtree! Now I can see at a glance exactly how screwed up the WebLion Hosting repository is.
Just remember to install the graphviz package, too, so you can render debtree’s textual output into a pretty graphic. Here’s how I usually use it:
debtree --no-recommends --no-alternatives --max-depth=4 YOUR-PACKAGE | dot -T png > YOUR-FILE.png
You could probably even run some judicious greps over debtree’s output to filter out packages you don’t care about.
OmniGraffle supports dot files
If you have any need to tweek the graph by hand or want prettier output, OmniGraffle can import graphviz dot files. Also take a look at the native graphviz GUI app for mac. http://www.pixelglow.com/graphviz/ It uses the Mac's Quartz graphics engine to create pretty graphs and allows easy export to PDF.
-- Lee Joramo / designKiln.com