Name

aptitude — high-level interface to the package manager

Synopsis

aptitude [options...] { autoclean | clean | forget-new | update | upgrade }

aptitude [options...] { changelog | dist-upgrade | download | forbid-version | hold | markauto | purge | reinstall | remove | show | unmarkauto } packages...

aptitude [options...] search patterns...

aptitude [-S fname] [ -u | -i ]

aptitude help

Description

aptitude is a text-based interface to the Debian GNU/Linux package system.

It allows the user to view the list of packages and to perform package management tasks such as installing, upgrading, and removing packages. Actions may be performed from a visual interface or from the command-line.

Command-Line Actions

The first argument which does not begin with a hyphen (“-”) is considered to be an action that the program should perform. If an action is not specified on the command-line, aptitude will start up in visual mode.

The following actions are available:

install

Install one or more packages. The packages should be listed after the “install” command; if a package name contains a tilde character (“~”), it will be treated as a search pattern and every package matching the pattern will be installed (see the section Search Patterns in the aptitude reference manual).

To select a particular version of the package, append “=version” to the package name: for instance, “aptitude install apt=0.3.1”. Similarly, to select a package from a particular archive, append “/archive” to the package name: for instance, “aptitude install apt/experimental”.

Appending “-”, “+”, “_”, or “=” to the name of a package will cause the package to be removed, installed, purged, or held respectively. This can be used, for instance, to perform multiple actions from one command line.

As a special case, “install” with no arguments will act on any stored/pending actions.

[Note]Note

The “install” command will modify aptitude's stored information about what actions to perform. Therefore, if you issue (e.g.) the command “aptitude install foo bar” and then abort the installation, you will need to run “aptitude remove foo bar” to cancel that order.

remove, purge, hold, reinstall

These commands are the same as “install”, but apply the named action to all packages given on the command line, unless specified otherwise.

For instance, “aptitude remove '~ndeity'” will remove all packages whose name contains “deity”.

markauto, unmarkauto

Mark packages as automatically installed or manually installed, respectively. Packages are specified in exactly the same way as for the “install” command. For instance, “aptitude markauto '~slibs'” will mark all packages in the “libs” section as having been automatically installed.

For more information on automatically installed packages, see the section “Managing Automatically Installed Packages” in the aptitude reference manual.

forbid-version

Forbid a package from being upgraded to a particular version. This will prevent aptitude from automatically upgrading to this version, but will allow automatic upgrades to future versions. By default, aptitude will select the version to which the package would normally be upgraded; you may override this selection by appending “=version” to the package name: for instance, “aptitude forbid-version vim=1.2.3.broken-4”.

This command is useful for avoiding broken versions of packages without having to set and clear manual holds. If you decide you really want the forbidden version after all, the “install” command will remove the ban.

update

Updates the list of available packages from the apt sources (this is equivalent to “apt-get update”)

upgrade

Upgrades installed packages to their most recent version. Installed packages will not be removed unless they are unused (see the section “Managing Automatically Installed Packages” in the aptitude reference manual); packages which are not currently installed will not be installed.

If a package cannot be upgraded without violating these constraints, it will be kept at its current version.

forget-new

Forgets all internal information about what packages are “new” (equivalent to pressing “f” when in visual mode).

search

Searches for packages matching one of the patterns supplied on the command line. All packages which match any of the given patterns will be displayed; for instance, “aptitude search '~N'” will list all “new” packages. For more information on search patterns, see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual.

Unless you pass the -F option, the output of aptitude search will look something like this:

i   apt                             - Advanced front-end for dpkg              
pi  apt-build                       - frontend to apt to build, optimize and in
cp  apt-file                        - APT package searching utility -- command-
ihA raptor-utils                    - Raptor RDF Parser utilities

Each search result is listed on a separate line. The first character of each line indicates the current state of the package: the most common states are p, meaning that no trace of the package exists on the system, c, meaning that the package was deleted but its configuration files remain on the system, i, meaning that the package is installed, and v, meaning that the package is virtual. The second character indicates the stored action (if any; otherwise a blank space is displayed) to be performed on the package, with the most common actions being i, meaning that the package will be installed, d, meaning that the package will be deleted, and p, meaning that the package and its configuration files will be removed. If the third character is A, the package was automatically installed.

For a complete list of the possible state and action flags, see the section “Accessing Package Information” in the aptitude reference guide.

show

Displays detailed information about one or more packages, listed following the search command. If a package name contains a tilde character (“~”), it will be treated as a search pattern and all matching packages will be displayed (see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual).

clean

Removes all previously downloaded .deb files from the package cache directory (usually /var/cache/apt/archives).

autoclean

Removes any cached packages which can no longer be downloaded. This allows you to prevent a cache from growing out of control over time without completely emptying it.

changelog

Downloads and displays the Debian changelog for each of the given packages.

By default, the changelog for the version which would be installed with “aptitude install” is downloaded. You can select a particular version of a package by appending =version to the package name; you can select the version from a particular archive by appending /archive to the package name.

download

Downloads the .deb file for the given package to the current directory.

By default, the version which would be installed with “aptitude install” is downloaded. You can select a particular version of a package by appending =version to the package name; you can select the version from a particular archive by appending /archive to the package name.

help

Displays a brief summary of the available commands and options.

Options

The following options may be used to modify the behavior of the actions described above. Note that while all options will be accepted for all commands, some options don't apply to particular commands and will be ignored by those commands.

-D, --show-deps

For commands that will install or remove packages (install, upgrade, etc), show brief explanations of automatic installations and removals.

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Deps.

-d, --download-only

Download packages to the package cache as necessary, but do not install or remove anything. By default, the package cache is stored in /var/cache/apt/archives.

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Download-Only.

-F format, --display-format format

Specify the format which should be used to display output from the search command. For instance, passing “%p %V %v” for format will display a package's name, followed by its currently installed version and its available version (see the section “Customizing how packages are displayed” in the aptitude reference manual for more information).

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Package-Display-Format.

-f

Aggressively try to fix the dependencies of broken packages.

This corresponds to the configuration item Aptitude::CmdLine::Fix-Broken.

-h, --help

Display a brief help message. Identical to the help action.

-P, --prompt

Always display a prompt, even when no actions other than those explicitly requested will be performed.

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Always-Prompt.

-R, --without-recommends

Do not treat recommendations as dependencies when installing new packages (this overrides settings in /etc/apt/apt.conf and ~/.aptitude/config).

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::Recommends-Important

-r, --with-recommends

Treat recommendations as dependencies when installing new packages (this overrides settings in /etc/apt/apt.conf and ~/.aptitude/config).

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::Recommends-Important

-s, --simulate

Print the actions that would normally be performed, but don't actually perform them. This does not require root privileges.

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Simulate.

-t release, --target-release release

Set the release from which packages should be installed. For instance, “aptitude -t experimental ...” will install packages from the experimental distribution unless you specify otherwise.

This corresponds to the configuration item APT::Default-Release.

-O order, --sort order

Specify the order in which output from the search command should be displayed. For instance, passing “installsize” for order will list packages in order according to their size when installed (see the section “Customizing how packages are sorted” in the aptitude reference manual for more information).

-o key=value

Set a configuration file option directly; for instance, use -o Aptitude::Log=/tmp/my-log to log aptitude's actions to /tmp/my-log. For more information on configuration file options, see the section “Configuration file reference” in the aptitude reference manual.

-V, --show-versions

Show which versions of packages will be installed.

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Versions.

-v, --verbose

Causes some commands (for instance, show) to display extra information. This may be supplied multiple times to get more and more information.

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Verbose.

--version

Display the version of aptitude and some information about how it was compiled.

--visual-preview

When installing or removing packages from the command line, instead of displaying the usual prompt, start up the visual interface and display its preview screen.

-w width, --width width

Specify the display width which should be used for output from the search command (by default, the terminal width is used).

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Package-Display-Width

-y, --assume-yes

When a yes/no prompt would be presented, assume that the user entered “yes”. In particular, suppresses the prompt that appears when installing, upgrading, or removing packages. Prompts for “dangerous” actions, such as removing essential packages, will still be displayed. This option overrides -P.

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Assume-Yes.

-Z

Show how much disk space will be used or freed by the individual packages being installed, upgraded, or removed.

This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Size-Changes.

The following options apply to the visual mode of the program, but are primarily for internal use; you generally won't need to use them yourself.

-S fname

Loads the extended state information from fname instead of the standard state file.

-u

Begins updating the package lists as soon as the program starts. You cannot use this option and -i at the same time.

-i

Displays a download preview when the program starts (equivalent to starting the program and immediately pressing “g”). You cannot use this option and “-u” at the same time.

See Also

apt-get(8), apt(8), /usr/share/doc/aptitude/html/index.html