Various tips on debian's apt utilities like apt-get
, apt-cache
, apt-file
, dpkg
, etc.
-
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
.
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
).
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
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
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.
apt-cache search -n ^apt-
- Debian Documentation Project
- APT HOWTO