Archive for April, 2014

apt 1.0

April 4, 2014

APT 1.0 was released on the 1. April 2014 [0]! The first APT version was announced on the 1. April exactly 16 years ago [1].

The big news for this version is that we included a new “apt” binary that combines the most commonly used commands from apt-get and apt-cache. The commands are the same as their apt-get/apt-cache counterparts but with slightly different configuration options.

Currently the apt binary supports the following commands:

  • list: which is similar to dpkg list and can be used with flags like
    --installed or --upgradable.
  • search: works just like apt-cache search but sorted alphabetically.
  • show: works like apt-cache show but hide some details that people are less likely to care about (like the hashes). The full record is still available via apt-cache show of course.
  • update: just like the regular apt-get update with color output enabled.
  • install,remove: adds progress output during the dpkg run.
  • upgrade: the same as apt-get dist-upgrade –with-new-pkgs.
  • full-upgrade: a more meaningful name for dist-upgrade.
  • edit-sources: edit sources.list using $EDITOR.

Here is what the new progress looks like in 1.0:
apt-progress

You can enable/disable the install progress via:

# echo 'Dpkg::Progress-Fancy "1";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99progressbar

If you have further suggestions or bugreport about APT, get in touch and most importantly, have fun!