Advanced Packaging Tool - Front-ends

Front-ends

Several other front-ends to APT exist, which provide more advanced installation functions and more intuitive interfaces. These include:

• Synaptic Package Manager, a GTK+ graphical user interface
• Ubuntu Software Center, a GTK+ graphical user interface replacement for Synaptic
• aptitude, a versatile alternative to dselect
• KPackage, part of KDE
• Adept Package Manager, a graphical user interface for KDE (deb, rpm, bsd)
• PackageKit, a freedesktop.org frontend.
• GDebi, a GTK-based tool sponsored for Ubuntu. (There is also a Qt version, available in the Ubuntu repositories a gdebi-kde.)
• apt-cdrom, a way to add a new CDROM to APT's list of available sources.lists (list of available repositories). It is necessary to use apt-cdrom to add CDs to the APT system, it cannot be done by hand.
• apt-zip, a way to use apt with removable media, specifically USB flash drives.
• apt:foo, an interface for downloading and installing software by clicking on a web-link (experimental)
• gnome-apt, a gtk/GNOME-widget-based graphical front-end.
• Muon Software Center, a Qt based graphical user interface
• Cydia, a package manager for jailbroken iOS partially based on APT (ported to iOS as part of the Telesphoreo project).
• Hildon Application Manager (Maemo Application), a Maemo front-end
• APT Daemon, a front-end that runs as a service to allow standard users to install software through PolicyKit and is in turn the framework that the Ubuntu Software Center (along with the Linux Mint Software Manager) uses to not be root and still run.

APT front-ends can:

• Search for new packages.
• Upgrade packages.
• Install or remove packages.
• Upgrade the whole system to a new release.

APT front-ends can list the dependencies of packages being installed or upgraded, ask the administrator if packages recommended or suggested by newly installed packages should be installed too, automatically install dependencies and perform other operations on the system such as removing obsolete files and packages.