apt-get newbie questions

[Kevin Kempter]

Hi List;
I just installed Edgy eft on a laptop and its working great!

I'm used to RPM systems where I can search for a pattern as in:
 "yum search xine" and then install the packages listed that I want.

3 questions:

1) Is apt-get the preferred package inataller?
2) can I do a similar 'search' as above with apt-get
3) how can I add additional repositories to apt? (and do I want to?, is there 
a preferred favorite set of additional repositories)?

Thanks in advance