apt and apt-get

[Liam Proven]

On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 at 11:17, Eliza <eli at chinabuckets.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I am running ubuntu-18.04, which has both apt and apt-get for package
> management.
>
> $ apt-get -v
> apt 1.6.10 (amd64)
>
> $ apt -v
> apt 1.6.10 (amd64)
>
> Are these two programs the same one? which is suggested?

It's worse, there's aptitude too.

APT is the family of tools; historically ``apt-get'' was one of the
many sub-tools. ``apt'' was another.

Debian decided this wasn't ideal and put quite a lot of effort into
``aptitude'' which is a more powerful replacement and wraps up various
other tools.

Ubuntu is a descendant of Debian but focusses less on power and more
on friendliness.

So it enhanced the ``apt'' tool a bit to make it easier to do common stuff.

So formerly the official way to do some stuff was:

apt-get update
(refresh your local index of what's in the online software repositories)

apt-get install [appname]
(install this new app)

apt-get upgrade

(upgrade to the latest version of all apps)

apt-get dist-upgrade
(upgrade the whole distro including installing new apps if needed)

But

apt-search [appname]
to find something

and

apt-cache clean
to clean up the local package cache

Now ``apt'' makes it a bit easier and with less typing.

apt udate
apt install [appname]
apt full-upgrade

You only need the one command, not 3 or 4 sub-commands.


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