Advanced Packaging Tool

The 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 the Debian Linux distribution and its variants. APT simplifies the process of managing software on Unix-like computer systems by automating the retrieval, configuration and installation of software packages, either from precompiled files or by compiling source code.

APT was originally designed as a front-end for dpkg to work with Debian's .deb packages, but it has since been modified to also work with the RPM Package Manager system via APT-RPM. The Fink project has ported APT to Mac OS X for some of its own package management tasks, and APT is also available in OpenSolaris.

Usage

There has been an apt program since version 1.0; apt is a collection of tools distributed in a package named apt. A significant part of apt is defined in a C++ library of functions; apt also includes command-line programs for dealing with packages, which use the library. Three such programs are apt, apt-get and apt-cache. They are commonly used in examples of apt because they are simple and ubiquitous. The apt package is of "important" priority in all current Debian releases, and is therefore installed in a default Debian installation. Apt can be considered a front-end to dpkg, friendlier than the older dselect front-end. While dpkg performs actions on individual packages, apt tools manage relations (especially dependencies) between them, as well as sourcing and management of higher-level versioning decisions (release tracking and version pinning).