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An
Ncurses
and command-line
front-end
for package management. For basic usage, see
AptCLI
. For package management generally, see
PackageManagement
Contents
Interactive Use
Advanced search patterns
See Also
Aptitude
has a number of useful features, including:
mutt
-like syntax for matching packages
preview actions about to be taken with different colors marking different actions
persistence of user actions (similar to
dselect
interactively retrieve and display the Debian changelog for packages
apt
-like command line mode (
aptitude install foo
score-based dependency resolver is more suitable for interactive dependency resolution
lets you add hints like "keep this part of the solution" or "drop that part of the solution"
Interactive Use
To run interactively, enter the following from a
terminal emulator
aptitude
After running it, use:
F10
or
Ctrl-T
to access the menu.
for help
The
up
down
left
right
keys to navigate.
The
Enter
key to select or open and close a single level
The bracket keys (
and
) to open and close levels recursively
The
or
key to install/update or remove a package
The
key to preview/confirm actions
to quit – this also closes the currently open window (
goes forward,
goes back)
Forward and backward slash (
and
) for searching forward or backward.
When reviewing dependency resolutions (shown after pressing
), press:
cursor keys or vi-style
keys to select actions or action groups
to explicitly insist on an action (use again to go back to no specific decision)
to reject an action (use again to go back to no specific decision)
dot (
) to show the next proposed dependency resolution
comma (
) to show the previous proposed dependency resolution
exclamation mark (
) to accept the currently shown dependency resolution
When reviewing pending actions, press:
again to go ahead and execute the pending actions
to go back to the previous view
See
Accessing package information
to understand the letters in the package synopsis line (e.g.,
means "will be installed",
means "not installed", etc.)
The most common way to use
aptitude
is:
run
aptitude
press
to update the lists of available packages
press
to mark all upgradable packages to be upgraded
optionally search/select some packages to install
press
to see the pending actions and modify them if needed
press
again to start the download
Aptitude (
last modified 2025-08-24 17:16:08
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