NAME

       chdist - script to easily play with several distributions

SYNOPSIS

       chdist [options] [command] [command parameters]

       chdist [options] DIST command [command parameters]

       The second syntax is accepted when the DIST does not match one of the known commands from the list below
       (see "COMMANDS").  Then the command may be any program available on the system and anything based on apt
       will be using the DIST apt data.

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

       build-rdeps DIST [...]
           Run  build-rdeps  inside DIST.  When the DIST origin and suite/codename differ from the system origin
           and suite/codename then they need to be set using build-rdeps options.

       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, ...]
       compare-bin-packages DIST1 DIST2 [DIST3, ...]
           List versions of packages in several DISTributions

       compare-versions DIST1 DIST2
       compare-bin-versions DIST1 DIST2
           Same as compare-packages/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                                   2025-06-16                                          CHDIST(1)