PackageManagementTools

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Tools for managing Debian packages. For general topics, see PackageManagement.

Contents

Popular tools

graphical package managers
- Synaptic - Graphical package manager
- gdebi - Graphical installer for standalone DebianPackages
- gnome-software - Software Center for GNOME
- plasma-discover - Software Center for KDE
command-line package managers
- apt - main command-line package management tool
- aptitude - command-line and text-based interface (ncurses) for Apt
- apt-get - Debian's original package management tool

For more information about command-line package managers, see AptCLI.

Full list of package management tools

apt

The apt package provides commandline tools for searching, managing, and querying information about packages, and access all features of the libapt-pkg library:

apt - high-level commandline interface for the package management system.
apt-cache - performs a variety of operations on APT's package cache.
apt-cdrom - used to add a new CD-ROM to APT's list of available sources.
apt-config - This program is used by the other apt utilities to provide a standard interface to the apt configuration settings.
apt-get - command-line tool for handling packages
apt-key - manage the list of keys used by apt to authenticate packages. $/!\$ This command is deprecated!

dpkg

The dpkg package provides low-level infrastructure for handling the installation and removal of Debian software packages:

dpkg - a tool to install, build, remove and manage Debian packages.
dpkg-deb - Debian package archive (.deb) manipulation tool
dpkg-divert - override a package's version of a file
dpkg-maintscript-helper - works around known dpkg limitations in maintainer scripts
dpkg-query - show information about packages listed in the dpkg database.
dpkg-split - splits binary packages into smaller files and reassembles them(storage of large package files on small media)
dpkg-statoverride - override ownership and mode of files
dpkg-trigger - a tool to explicitly activate dpkg triggers
update-alternatives - maintain symbolic links determining default commands

apt-utils

apt-utils contains some less used commandline utilities related to package management with APT.

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 Debian Packages index files from binary packages (.deb and variants)
dpkg-scansources - create Debian Sources index files from source packages (.dsc)

TODO unsorted

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-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-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
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.
Wajig - wrapper tool for apt-get, dpkg, apt-cache, wget, and others

Tools for managing a package repository

apt-cacher - This is an alternative tool to 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.

Other

dselect - Deprecated: superseded by aptitude
tasksel – Tool for selecting tasks for installation on Debian systems
PackageKit - Distro-agnostic frontend under developement