Retrieve bug reports from the Debian Bug Tracking System using apt-listbugs

apt-listbugs is a tool which retrieves bug reports from the Debian Bug Tracking System and lists them. Especially, it is intended to be invoked before each upgrade by apt in order to check whether the upgrade/installation is safe.

Install apt-listbugs in debian

#apt-get install apt-listbugs

Install apt-listbugs in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install apt-listbugs

apt-listbugs Syntax

apt-listbugs [options] [arguments]

Available options

Options:
-h : Display this help and exit.
-s <severities> : Severities you want to see [critical,grave,serious].
-T <tags> : Tags you want to see.
-S <stats> : Stats you want to see [forwarded,done,pending,].
-D : Show downgraded packages, too.
-H <hostname> : Hostname of Debian Bug Tracking System [bugs.debian.org].
-p <port> : Port number of the server [80]
--indexdir : Directory where index.db located [/indices/]
--pin-priority : Specifies Pin-Priority value [1000]
--title : Specifies the title of rss output.
-f : Retrieve bug reports from BTS forcibly.
-q : Don't display progress bar.
-c <dir> : Specify cache_dir [/var/cache/apt-listbugs/].
-t <minutes> : Specify cache expire timer in minutes[60].
-C <apt.conf> : Specify apt.conf.
-y : Assume that you select yes for all questions.
-n : Assume that you select no for all questions.
Commands:
apt : apt mode
list <pkg...> : list bug reports of the specified packages
rss <pkg...> : list bug reports of the specified packages in rss

Example

I am trying to install apt-listchanges in etch

#apt-get install apt-listchanges

Reading package fields… Done
Reading package status… Done
Retrieving bug reports… Done
Parsing Found/Fixed information… Done
grave bugs of python-central (-> 0.5.8)

#396366 – duplicity: fails to install Merged with: 396158
Summary:python-central(1 bug)

You can see in the above example 1 bug reported for this package

If you want to know more options available for apt-listbugs check man page here