How To Install diffoscope-minimal on Kali Linux
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install diffoscope-minimal on Kali Linux.
What is diffoscope-minimal
diffoscope-minimal is:
diffoscope is a visual diff tool that attempts try to get to the bottom of what makes files or directories actually different.
It can recursively unpack archives of many kinds, transforming various binary formats into more human-readable form to compare them in a human-readable way. It can compare two tarballs, ISO images or PDFs just as easily. The differences can be displayed on the console or in a HTML report.
File formats supported include: Android APK files, Android boot images, Apple Xcode mobile provisioning files, ar(1) archives, ASM Function, Berkeley DB database files, bzip2 archives, character/block devices, ColorSync colour profiles (.icc), Coreboot CBFS filesystem images, cpio archives, Dalvik .dex files, Debian .buildinfo files, Debian .changes files, Debian source packages (.dsc), Device Tree Compiler blob files, directories, ELF binaries, ext2/ext3/ext4/btrfs/fat filesystems, Flattened Image Tree blob files, FreeDesktop Fontconfig cache files, FreePascal files (.ppu), Gettext message catalogues, GHC Haskell .hi files, GIF image files, Git repositories, GNU R database files (.rdb), GNU R Rscript files (.rds), Gnumeric spreadsheets, GPG keybox databases, Gzipped files, Hierarchical Data Format database, ISO 9660 CD images, Java .class files, Java .jmod modules, JavaScript files, JPEG images, JSON files, LLVM IR bitcode files, LZ4 compressed files, MacOS binaries, Microsoft Windows icon files, Microsoft Word .docx files, Mono ‘Portable Executable’ files, Mozilla-optimized .ZIP archives, Multimedia metadata, OCaml interface files, Ogg Vorbis audio files, OpenOffice .odt files, OpenSSH public keys, OpenWRT package archives (.ipk), PDF documents, PE32 files, PGP signatures, PGP signed/encrypted messages, PNG images, PostScript documents, Public Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) files (version #7), RPM archives, Rust object files (.deflate), SQLite databases, SquashFS filesystems, symlinks, tape archives (.tar), tcpdump capture files (.pcap), text files, TrueType font files, U-Boot legacy image files, WebAssembly binary module, XML binary schemas (.xsb), XML files, XZ compressed files, ZIP archives and Zstandard compressed files.
This -minimal package only recommends a partial set of the supported 3rd party tools needed to produce file-format-specific comparisons, excluding those that are considered too large or niche for general use.
diffoscope is developed as part of the Reproducible Builds project.
There are three methods to install diffoscope-minimal on Kali Linux. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install diffoscope-minimal Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get updateAfter updating apt database, We can install diffoscope-minimal using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install diffoscope-minimalInstall diffoscope-minimal Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt updateAfter updating apt database, We can install diffoscope-minimal using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install diffoscope-minimalInstall diffoscope-minimal Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude on Kali Linux first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Kali Linux. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude updateAfter updating apt database, We can install diffoscope-minimal using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install diffoscope-minimalHow To Uninstall diffoscope-minimal on Kali Linux
To uninstall only the diffoscope-minimal package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove diffoscope-minimalUninstall diffoscope-minimal And Its Dependencies
To uninstall diffoscope-minimal and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Kali Linux, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove diffoscope-minimalRemove diffoscope-minimal Configurations and Data
To remove diffoscope-minimal configuration and data from Kali Linux we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge diffoscope-minimalRemove diffoscope-minimal configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove diffoscope-minimal configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge diffoscope-minimalDependencies
diffoscope-minimal have the following dependencies:
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install diffoscope-minimal package on Kali Linux using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.
