APT

Advanced Package Tool, or APT, is a free software user interface that works with core libraries to handle the installation and removal of software on Debian, Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. Main Advanced Package Tool (APT) binaries are: apt, apt-get and apt-cache

Basic apt-get/apt commands

• Installing: apt install PACKAGE_NAME
• apt show PACKAGE_NAME or aptitude show PACKAGE_NAME
• apt policy PACKAGE_NAME Provides source repository for a given package.
• apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
• Showing pending to update packages: apt-get upgrade --dry-run or apt-get upgrade -s
  • /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check --human-readable

Basic apt-cache commands

• apt-cache search
• apt-cache policy List source repository configured included priorities of each source.
• apt-cache showpkg PACKAGE_NAME. See also: apt show PACKAGE_NAMEdpkg -s PACKAGE_NAME
• apt-cache show PACKAGE_NAME

Relevant configuration files and directories

• /etc/apt/sources.list: Configuration files with locations to fetch packages from.
• /etc/apt/sources.list.d/: directory with additional source list fragments.

Updates

• To collect information about what installed packages can be upgraded:
  • apt update
  • apt list --upgradable
  • apt-get upgrade --dry-run or apt-get upgrade -s
  • apt update && apt upgrade
• To upgrade all installed packages: apt upgrade
• apt dist-upgrade (see also /do-release-upgrade/)
• apt /Automatic updates/

Holding packages

To avoid packages from being upgrade when upgrading use apt-mark command

• apt-mark hold PACKAGE_NAME
• apt-mark unhold PACKAGE_NAME
• apt-mark showhold

Single upgrade

• To upgrade only a package: apt-get install --only-upgrade PACKAGE_NAME

Activities

1. Read differences between apt upgrade and apt dist-upgrade: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/304887
2. Read Linux server administration/apt/Automatic updates
3. Install software-properties-common package to be able to use apt-add-repository Python command available since 2004.

See Also

• dpkg, dnf and snap
• w:Deb_(file_format) to understand .deb internal format an included files: preinst, postinst, prerm and postrm.
• RPM (Linux)
• pkgutil (MacOS)
• brew (MacOS), command of the Homebrew package management software w:Homebrew (package management software)
• pkg (FreeBSD)
• w:apt-file to view the contents of debian packages on remote repositories
• /opkg/
• Package manager
• docker

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Original Source: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Linux_server_administration/apt