Is it possible to get a list of most recently installed packages?

Command to list recently installed packages that were installed via any method (apt-get, Software Center et al.):

grep " install " /var/log/dpkg.log

Example output:

2010-12-08 15:48:14 install python-testtools <none> 0.9.2-1
2010-12-08 15:48:16 install quickly-widgets <none> 10.09
2010-12-08 22:21:31 install libobasis3.3-sdk <none> 3.3.0-17
2010-12-09 12:00:24 install mc <none> 3:4.7.0.6-1
2010-12-09 23:32:06 install oggconvert <none> 0.3.3-1ubuntu1
2010-12-09 23:34:50 install mpg123 <none> 1.12.1-3ubuntu1
2010-12-09 23:34:52 install dir2ogg <none> 0.11.8-1
2010-12-09 23:34:53 install faad <none> 2.7-4
2010-12-09 23:34:54 install wavpack <none> 4.60.1-1
2010-12-10 11:53:00 install playonlinux <none> 3.8.6

---

You could run this command to list only the recently installed package names,

awk '$3~/^install$/ {print $4;}' /var/log/dpkg.log

Command to list history of apt-get (NOTE: this doesn't list dependencies installed, it simply lists previous apt-get commands that were run):

grep " install " /var/log/apt/history.log

Example output:

Commandline: apt-get install libindicate-doc
Commandline: apt-get install googlecl
Commandline: apt-get --reinstall install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Commandline: apt-get install valac libvala-0.10-dev
Commandline: apt-get install libgtksourceview-dev
Commandline: apt-get install python-sphinx
Commandline: apt-get install python-epydoc
Commandline: apt-get install quickly-widgets
Commandline: apt-get install libreoffice3* libobasis3.3*
Commandline: apt-get install mc

Ubuntu's Software Center shows whole history of all packages that were installed/upgraded/removed. Just click "History" at the bottom of the list at left.

To see also older packages sorted by time of installation:

grep " install " /var/log/dpkg.log.1 /var/log/dpkg.log

And for packages installed very long time ago:

gunzip -c `ls -tr /var/log/dpkg.log.*.gz` | grep " install "