'apt-cache' madison is the answer. Example: giavac@myhost$ apt-cache madison vim vim | 2:7.3.547-7 | http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages From apt-cache man page: madison pkg... apt-cache's madison command attempts to mimic the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian archive management tool, madison. It displays available versions of a package in a tabular format. Unlike the original madison, it can only display information for the architecture for which APT has retrieved package lists (APT::Architecture).