Making use of aptitude

The aptitude command is a very useful, text-based utility for managing packages on your server. Some administrators use it as an alternative to apt, and it even has additional features that you won't find anywhere else. To get started, you'll need to install aptitude, if it isn't already:

# apt-get install aptitude

The most basic usage of aptitude allows you to perform functions you would normally be able to perform with apt. In the following table, I outline several example aptitude commands, as well as their apt equivalent:

aptitude command	apt equivalent
# aptitude install <packagename>	# apt-get install <packagename>
# aptitude remove <packagename>	# apt-get remove <packagename>
# aptitude search <search term>	# apt-cache search <packagename>
# aptitude update	# apt-get update
# aptitude upgrade	# apt-get upgrade
# aptitude dist-upgrade	# apt-get dist-upgrade

For the most part, the commands...