Where are packages stored installed with APT in Ubuntu 16.04?

Solution 1:

If you use apt instead of apt-get, the default is not to store debs anywhere if the apt install is successful.

From /usr/share/doc/apt/NEWS.Debian.gz:

apt (1.2~exp1) experimental; urgency=medium

[ Automatic removal of debs after install ] After packages are successfully installed by apt(8), the corresponding .deb package files will be removed from the /var/cache/apt/archives cache directory.

This can be changed by setting the apt configuration option Binary::apt::APT::Keep-Downloaded-Packages to true. E.g:

# echo 'Binary::apt::APT::Keep-Downloaded-Packages "true";' \
> /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01keep-debs

Please note that the behavior of apt-get is unchanged. The downloaded debs will be kept in the cache directory after they are installed. To enable the behavior for other tools, you can set APT::Keep-Downloaded-Packages to false.