How To Install diffoscope-minimal on Kali Linux

In this tutorial we learn how to install diffoscope-minimal on Kali Linux. diffoscope-minimal is in-depth visual diff tool for files, archives and directories (minimal package)

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 update

After updating apt database, We can install diffoscope-minimal using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install diffoscope-minimal

Install diffoscope-minimal Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install diffoscope-minimal using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install diffoscope-minimal

Install 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 update

After updating apt database, We can install diffoscope-minimal using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install diffoscope-minimal

How 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-minimal

Uninstall 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-minimal

Remove 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-minimal

Remove 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-minimal

Dependencies

diffoscope-minimal have the following dependencies:

References

diffoscope-minimal website

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.