Is there a tool/website to compare package status in different Linux distributions?

Question

I am currently looking for a website or a tool that would allow me to compare the package state of a particular software in different Linux distributions.

For instance, which version of gimp is provided by Mint, Ubuntu, Debian Sid and Fedora 18?

An immediate interest would be to be able to avoid reinventing the wheel when packaging software (for instance re-use patches from other distros).

Answer 1

whohas package (link) may help you.

Example

% whohas pidgin|grep "pidgin "
MacPorts    pidgin                                 2.10.6                                                       https://trac.macports.org/browser/trunk/dports/net/pidgin/Portfile
Slackware   pidgin                                 2.7.11-i486-3sl                    slacky.eu                 
Slackware   pidgin                                 2.7.0-i486-1                       salixos.org               
Slackware   pidgin                                 2.7.0-i486-1                       slackware.com             
OpenBSD     pidgin                                 2.9.0-gtkspell          8.3M                                 
OpenBSD     pidgin                                 2.9.0              8.3M 16-Aug-201                           
Mandriva        pidgin                             2.10.6-0.1.i586                                              http://sophie.zarb.org/rpms/a6ec6cd30f5fa024d14549eea375dba4
Fink        pidgin                                 2.10.6-1                                                     http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/pidgin
FreeBSD     pidgin                                 2.10.6                             net-im                    http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/pds.cgi?ports/net-im/pidgin
FreeBSD     e17-module-everything-pidgin           20111128                           x11-wm                    http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/pds.cgi?ports/x11-wm/e17-module-everything-pidgin
NetBSD      pidgin                                 2.10.6nb5          10M  2012-12-15 chat                      http://pkgsrc.se/chat/pidgin
Ubuntu      pidgin                                 1:2.10.0-0ubuntu2. 695K            oneiric                   http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/pidgin
Ubuntu      indicator-status-provider-pidgin       0.5.0-0ubuntu1     7K              oneiric                   http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/indicator-status-provider-pidgin
Debian      pidgin                                 2.7.3-1+squeeze3   706K            stable                    http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/pidgin
Debian      pidgin                                 2.10.6-2           591K            testing                   http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/pidgin
Debian      indicator-status-provider-pidgin       0.6.0-1            33K             testing                   http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/indicator-status-provider-pidgin
Source Mage funpidgin                              2.5.0                              test                      
Source Mage funpidgin                              2.5.0                              stable                    
Source Mage pidgin                                 2.10.6                             test                      
Source Mage pidgin                                 2.10.5                             stable                    
Gentoo      pidgin                                 2.10.6                                                       http://gentoo-portage.com/net-im/pidgin 
Gentoo      pidgin                                 2.10.4                                                       http://gentoo-portage.com/net-im/pidgin 

Answer 2

You can use the Repology website.

Repology monitors a huge number of package repositories and other sources comparing packages versions across them and gathering other information. Repology shows you in which repositories a given project is packaged, which version is the latest and which needs updating, who maintains the package, and other related information.

It has some other useful features such as statistics for the repositories that it supports.

Here's a screenshot of its page for the versions for GIMP:

---

The legend for the label colours can be found at the bottom of this page. In short:

Answer 3

The closest thing I've come across to a tool like this is pkgs.org:

pkgs.org - Linux Software Catalog and Packages Search The pkgs.org is created to provide you with the simplest method of searching and downloading the newest versions of the best Linux software - without the usual excessive popups or spyware. Also use it to find alternatives to commercial packages with expensive licensing fees and complicated restrictions.

Features

• Search for RPM, DEB, TGZ, TXZ packages from well-known repositories of the ALT Linux, Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Mageia, Mint, OpenMandriva, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, RHEL, ROSA, Slackware, Ubuntu distributions;
• Packages search by name, filename, summary, description, requires, provides, files and directories;
• Powerful packages browser (summary, description, files, requires, provides, changelog, etc.);
• Install Howtos for all available repositories;
• Free Software Catalog;
• RSS & Twitter;
• Fast servers to make your packages search as fast as possible;
• All packages are downloaded only from the official repositories!

Answer 4

Distrowatch has a table show what versions of software specific distros include. If you open your preferred distos in different tabs you can see what version of GIMP they have.

Here's Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora, there's a radio button to choose between seeing only the major packages and all packages. Select all packages if your package isn't on the major package list.