Use the command:

apt-cache policy <packageName>

This gives you information of all available package versions.

Example:

alaa@aa-lu:~$ apt-cache policy vlc

vlc:

  Installed: 2.0.8-0ubuntu0.13.04.1

  Candidate: 2.0.8-0ubuntu0.13.04.1

  Version table:

 *** 2.0.8-0ubuntu0.13.04.1 0

        500 http://ae.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring-updates/universe i386 Packages

        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring-security/universe i386 Packages

        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

     2.0.6-1 0

        500 http://ae.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring/universe i386 Packages

• From the output, you can see that there are two versions available: 2.0.8-0ubuntu0.13.04.1 and 2.0.6-1. It also tells you which repositories they are coming from.




• Installed: tells you the version you have installed. If you don't have the package installed, you'll see (none).




• Candidate: is the version that will be installed if you use apt-get install vlc. If you want to install the other version, you would do apt-get install vlc=2.0.6-1.