Home > Advanced Packaging Tool

There is no apt program per se; APT is a C++ library of functions that are used by several command line programs for dealing with packages, most notably apt-get and apt-cache.

There are also programs that provide a front end to APT, usually based on apt-get, such as aptitude with an ncurses text interface, and Synaptic with a GTK+ graphical user interface.

There is a central repository of over 13000 apt packages used by apt-get and derived programs to download and install applications directly from the Internet, often hailed as one of Debian's best features. Furthermore, any number of additional repositories can be queried by APT, which lead to developers sometimes offering heavily patched or backported versions of packages in the developer's own repository. Package repositories do not necessarily have to reside on Internet sites, but can also be burnt on CD. This opens up a way to upgrade non-networked machines.

APT was originally designed to work with .deb packages on Debian systems, but it has since been modified to work with RPM packages via apt4rpm, and to run on other operating systems such as Mac OS XMac OS X is the latest version of the Mac OS operating system for Macintosh computers. Developed and published by Apple Computer, it provides the stability of a Unix operating environment and adds popular features of the traditional Macintosh user interfa — see finkIn computing, the Fink project is an effort to port popular Unix programs to Mac OS X. Fink uses the Debian package management system, apt, as well as its own frontend program, fink. FinkCommander puts a GUI frontend on Fink. Fink is widely recommended as.

The idea in APT is that once a package repository has been specified during the system installation, packages can be installed without specifying a specific location. APT also handles dependencies automatically.

For example, one will see an output like this when installing the GaleonThis page is about a web browser. For the type of ship, see Galleon Galeon is a web browser for GNOME based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine. Galeon's developer's self-declared mission was to deliver "the web and only the web". At the time of Galeon's cre Web browserA web browser is a software package that enables a user to display and interact with documents hosted by web servers. Popular browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. A browser is the most commonly used kind of user agent. The lar:

APT automatically detects the required missing packages, and will install those automatically. It also shows recommended and suggested packages, summarising which new packages will be installed and how much space they will take up after install.