diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 99bbb6bd5b..3941098473 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ else
 ASCII2MAN = @echo "ERROR: rst2man from docutils command is not installed but is required to build $(MANPAGES)" && exit 1
 endif
 
-PYTHON=python
+PYTHON?=python
 GENERATE_CLI = hacking/build-ansible.py generate-man
 
 SITELIB = $(shell $(PYTHON) -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print get_python_lib()")
diff --git a/lib/ansible/modules/packaging/os/apt_rpm.py b/lib/ansible/modules/packaging/os/apt_rpm.py
index 9c5e8e1d59..26be917c3f 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/modules/packaging/os/apt_rpm.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/modules/packaging/os/apt_rpm.py
@@ -68,6 +68,12 @@ import json
 import os
 import shlex
 import sys
+# md5.py is deprecated since python2.5
+try:
+    import hashlib as md5
+except ImportError:
+    # but we need to be compatible with >= python2.4
+    import md5 as md5
 
 from ansible.module_utils.basic import AnsibleModule
 
@@ -92,6 +98,15 @@ def query_package_provides(module, name):
     return rc == 0
 
 
+def query_packages_digest(module):
+    # compute hashsum of all installed package names
+    # returns None on exception
+        rc, out, err = module.run_command("%s -qa" % RPM_PATH, encoding=None)
+        if rc:
+            return None
+        return md5.md5(out).hexdigest()
+
+
 def update_package_db(module):
     rc, out, err = module.run_command("%s update" % APT_PATH)
 
@@ -125,11 +140,11 @@ def install_packages(module, pkgspec):
 
     packages = ""
     for package in pkgspec:
-        if not query_package_provides(module, package):
-            packages += "'%s' " % package
+        packages += "'%s' " % package
 
     if len(packages) != 0:
 
+        chksum = query_packages_digest(module)
         rc, out, err = module.run_command("%s -y install %s" % (APT_PATH, packages))
 
         installed = True
@@ -141,7 +156,14 @@ def install_packages(module, pkgspec):
         if rc or not installed:
             module.fail_json(msg="'apt-get -y install %s' failed: %s" % (packages, err))
         else:
-            module.exit_json(changed=True, msg="%s present(s)" % packages)
+            if chksum:
+                newchksum = query_packages_digest(module)
+                if chksum != newchksum:
+                    module.exit_json(changed=True, msg="Some packages installed/upgraded")
+                else:
+                    module.exit_json(changed=False, msg="No packages installed/upgraded")
+            else:
+                module.exit_json(changed=True, msg="%s present(s)" % packages)
     else:
         module.exit_json(changed=False)