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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><title>What is the apt system?</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="aptitude.css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1" /><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="aptitude user's manual" /><link rel="up" href="pr01.html" title="Introduction" /><link rel="prev" href="pr01s02.html" title="What is a package manager?" /><link rel="next" href="pr01s04.html" title="How can I get aptitude?" /><link rel="preface" href="pr01.html" title="Introduction" /><link rel="chapter" href="ch01.html" title="Chapter 1. Getting started" /><link rel="chapter" href="ch02.html" title="Chapter 2. aptitude reference guide" /><link rel="chapter" href="ch03.html" title="Chapter 3. aptitude frequently asked questions" /><link rel="chapter" href="ch04.html" title="Chapter 4. Credits" /><link rel="reference" href="rn01.html" title="Command-line reference" /><link rel="refentry" href="rn01re01.html" title="aptitude" /><link rel="refentry" href="rn01re02.html" title="aptitude-create-state-bundle" /><link rel="refentry" href="rn01re03.html" title="aptitude-run-state-bundle" /></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">What is the <code class="systemitem">apt</code> system?</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="pr01s02.html"><img src="images/prev.gif" alt="Prev" /></a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Introduction</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="pr01s04.html"><img src="images/next.gif" alt="Next" /></a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="idm97"></a>What is the <code class="systemitem">apt</code> system?</h2></div></div></div><p>
Being able to install and remove packages is great, but the
basic software for doing this (known as
<code class="systemitem">dpkg</code>) does exactly that and nothing
more. This is fine if you download one or two packages by
hand, but quickly becomes cumbersome when you are trying to
manage a large number of packages. Furthermore, if your shiny
new package requires software you haven't yet installed, you
have to download the newly required software by hand. And if
you later decide to remove the no-longer-shiny package, these
extra packages will linger on your system, consuming hard
drive space, unless you manually remove them.
</p><p>
Obviously, all of this manual labor is a tedious chore, and so
most package management systems come with software which takes
care of some or all of it for you. <code class="systemitem">apt</code> is a common base on
which to build these programs: in addition to <span class="command"><strong>aptitude</strong></span>,
programs such as <span class="command"><strong>synaptic</strong></span> and
<span class="command"><strong>apt-watch</strong></span> make use of <code class="systemitem">apt</code>.
</p><p>
<code class="systemitem">apt</code> works by keeping a list of the packages that can be
downloaded from Debian on your computer. This list is used to
find packages that need to be upgraded and to install new
packages. <code class="systemitem">apt</code> can also solve many dependency problems
automatically: for instance, when you choose to install a
package, it will find any additional required packages and
install those as well.
</p><p>
When working with a package manager based on <code class="systemitem">apt</code>, such as
<span class="command"><strong>aptitude</strong></span>, you will typically perform three basic tasks: you
will <em class="firstterm">update</em> the list of packages that
are available by downloading new lists from the Debian
servers, you will <em class="firstterm">select</em> which packages
should be installed, upgraded, or removed, and finally, you
will <em class="firstterm">commit</em> your selections by actually
performing the installations, removals, etc.
</p><p>
<code class="systemitem">apt</code>-based package managers read the list of <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">sources</span>”</span> --
repositories of Debian packages -- from the file
<code class="filename">/etc/apt/sources.list</code>. The format and
contents of this file are beyond the scope of this document,
but are described in the manual page
<code class="systemitem">sources.list(5)</code>.
</p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="pr01s02.html"><img src="images/prev.gif" alt="Prev" /></a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="pr01.html"><img src="images/up.gif" alt="Up" /></a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="pr01s04.html"><img src="images/next.gif" alt="Next" /></a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">What is a package manager? </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html"><img src="images/home.gif" alt="Home" /></a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top">
How can I get <span class="command"><strong>aptitude</strong></span>?
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