how can I tell which patches I have applied?

[Brian McKee]

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 12:21 PM, H.S. <hs.samix at gmail.com> wrote:
> Glenn Holmer wrote:
>> Subject says all, is there a list on my machine somewhere or a GUI tool
>> that can show what I've applied?  I'm on 8.04 with GNOME.

> This looks like a way to see what security updates have been applied to
> a system as it is done in Windows systems. AFAIK, this is not how it
> works in Linux.

> In Linux one checks what version of a package is installed (you can use
> synaptic package manager for that, or dpkg). Your distro usually has
> information about what changes were made in the installed version of a
> package. For example, for a package foo, ver 3.0, you need to go to
> Ubuntu's website, check their page for foo and see what was the
> changelog for version 3.0. You can also checks for some relevant
> information in /usr/share/doc/foo directory on your system. On a related
> note, you might be interested in apt-listchanges package.

I agree with the above and would also suggest you also may find the
contents of /var/log/dpkg.log* useful to see what's been done on any
given machine.
If it's a specific package you are looking for, rather than visit the
website you can use e.g. aptitude changelog firefox to see the
history.  USN numbers etc are usually in there for security patches
etc.

HTH

Brian