Package Management Tools
The are several tools available on a Debian system for the management of packages and the package database. This is just a list of the commands related to the topic, to access complete information on the options and arguments used in each command, use the manpages.
A more complete list of tools may be obtained by installing the debtags package and typing:
aptitude search '~Gadmin::package-management~Gsuite::debian'
Tools for everyday use
synaptic - Graphical package manager (default for Gnome).
?kpackage - KDE Debian Package Manager (default for KDE).
Wajig - Wajig is a wrapper tool for apt-get, dpkg, apt-cache, wget, and others
PackageKit - Distro-agnostic frontend under developement
gdebi - graphical frontend for Gnome which integrates with nautilus.
Tools for advanced use
- apt - Advanced package tool
- apt-key - This tool is used for managing package authentication keys
dpkg - This is the main utility program that handles installation and removal of packages. All other tools are frontends for dpkg, and many users rarely use this tool directly.
apt-get - Used to organize the installation of packages (dpkg does the actual installing, apt-get handles dependencies, etc).
- apt-cache - Used to search the contents of the entire package database in the sources list (as opposed to dpkg searches, which only search the contents of installed packages).
- dpkg-deb - This tool is used to pack, unpack and provides information about package files.
- dpkg-divert - A tool for installing a package in a non-default location
- dpkg-query - A tool for querying the package database
- dpkg-statoverride - A tool for overriding modes and ownerships of files
- apt-file - This tool searches for a filename installed by any package in the contents of sources.list.
- apt-listchanges - This tool displays the relevant changelog entries whenever a package is upgraded.
?apt-build - Used to build packages from the source files
apt-cdrom-setup - This tool allows cdrom based sources to be included in the package sources list.
- apt-rdepends - This tool generates recursive dependency trees for a package.
- apt-spy - This tool is used to generate a sources.list file from the current list of mirrors, based on latency/bandwidth.
- apt-show-versions - shows all available versions of a package (allows wildcards), or all packages, and displays upgrade information where applicable.
- dpkg-reconfigure - Allows a package to be reconfigured based on preferences (the same questions that are asked when the package is first installed).
- apt-show-source - This is a variant of "apt-cache show" that shows information against the named source package, rather than the binary package.
- apt-listbugs - This tool shows known critical bugs in named packages.
- apt-config - This program is used by the other apt utilities to provide a standard interface to the apt configuration settings.
- apt-sortpkgs - Sorts records and fields within the sources and packages files.
- apt-extracttemplates - Extracts templates and install scripts from packages.
- apt-setup - This tool configures the sources.list file.
- apt-offline - Offline Package Management
- auto-apt - This tool checks the file access of programs running within its environments, and automatically installs packages if a program tries to access a file known to belong in an uninstalled package.
deborphan - This tool scans the package database for unused or redundant packages||
dpkg-www - Debian package management web interface - browse Debian packages on a local or remote host using a normal web browser.
apt-xapian-index - a tool to maintain a Xapian index of Debian package information and a command line search tool that uses the index.
apt-utils
apt-utils contains some less used commandline utilities related to package management with APT.
- apt-ftparchive - create Packages and other index files needed to publish an archive of Debian packages
devscripts
devscripts provides several scripts to make the life of a Debian Package maintainer easier
- debuild - This tool is used for rebuilding packages
dpkg-dev
dpkg-dev provides the development tools (including dpkg-source) required to unpack, build and upload Debian source packages.
- dpkg-scanpackages - create Apt Packages index files from binary packages
- dpkg-scansources - create Debian source index files from .dsc files
Tools for managing a package repository
- apt-cacher - This is an alternative tool to apt-proxy.
- apt-proxy - This is a specialized proxy server for accessing apt repositories. This can be used on a network to get packages from a central server that only downloads from the mirrors once.
- apt-proxy-import - Imports packages into a cache used by apt-proxy.
- apt-ftparchive - generates, from a directory of packages, the Packages and Sources control files used for an apt repository.
- apt-move - Moves a collection of Debian packages into a proper pool directory hierarchy as used by a package repository.
- apt-transport-https - Allows apt to be configured to use https
Alternative tools
- gdpm - Gnome Debian Package Manager (in development).
- gnome-apt - Gnome Advanced Package Tool (in development).
- pdbv - A tool for creating an xhtml view of the package database.
- dselect - Deprecated: superseded by aptitude
CategoryPackageManagement | ?CategoryQuickPackageManagement