The Debian package management tools we've reviewed so far are best for handling multi-step operations with long lists of packages. But they don't cover some of the nuts-and-bolts operations of package management. For this kind of work, you want to use dpkg.

For example, to get the complete status and description of a package, use the -s option:

# dpkg -s xsnow
Package: xsnow
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: non-free/x11
Installed-Size: 41
Maintainer: Martin Schulze <joey@debian.org>
Version: 1.40-6
Depends: libc6, xlib6g (>= 3.3-5)
Description: Brings Christmas to your desktop
 Xsnow is the X-windows application that will let it snow on the
 root window, in between and on windows.  Santa and his reindeer
 will complete your festive-season feeling.