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APT-cheat-sheet.md

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Advanced Package Tool

Various tips on debian's apt utilities like apt-get, apt-cache, apt-file, dpkg, etc.

/etc/apt/sources.list

  • netselect: A program which determines the fastest server from a list of hosts given on the command line.

  • netselect-apt: A program which generates a sources.list file using the best debian mirror.

The netselect-apt program can be found in the netselect source package. To install the netselect source package, add appropriate deb-src lines to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example:

deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US testing/non-US main contrib non-free

and then after:

apt-get update
apt-get source netselect

The above procedure will generate a directory with the netselect source, named for example netselect-0.3.ds1.

To generate a sources.list file for the testing distribution, run ./netselect-0.3.ds1/netselect-apt testing.

Install/remove

Example commands:

# Install pkg1 and remove pkg2.
apt-get install pkg1 pkg2-

# Remove pkg1 and install pkg2.
apt-get remove pkg1 pkg2+

# Install pkg from distribution dist. 
apt-get -t dist install pkg

# Install a specific version of a package.
apt-get install package=version

The -u flag causes APT to show the complete list of packages which will be upgraded (when doing apt-get upgrade or apt-get dist-upgrade).

Search

Example commands:

apt-cache search regexp
apt-cache show pkg
apt-cache showpkg pkg
COLUMNS=132 dpkg -l pattern

# Search for a filename in installed packages.
dpkg -S file

# List files installed from package.
dpkg -L package

# Update the database of files all packages contain.
apt-file update

# Search for a filename in all packages.
apt-file search file

Using source packages

Example commands:

apt-get source pkgname

# Automatically build the downloaded package.
apt-get -b source pkgname

# Build the package later, do this from within the directory
# that was created after downloading the source package.
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

dpkg -i file.deb

# Install the packages required for pkg to be built. 
# (Sources must be installed separately by apt-get source.)
apt-get build-dep pkg

Miscellaneous

Example commands:

# Lists available package versions with distribution.
apt-show-versions

# Display a list of upgradeable packages.
apt-show-versions -u

apt-cache depends pkgname

apt-cache rdepends pkgname

Speeding up apt-get install:

apt-fast is a shell wrapper around apt-get (and aptitude) and utilizes aria2 to speed-up apt-get installs. You can use PPA for ubuntu and/or install manually by referring to README.

Resources