OSNews

very interesting. Makes me want to buy an iphone.

apt is the Advanced Package Manager.

It's a tool to easily install software on debian/ubuntu and others.

APT = Advanced Package Tool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Packaging_Tool

apt-get is the command-line front end to this tool.

Apt was developed for Debian and is used by Debian and Debian-derived distributions. It has also been used in some other places, such as part of fink, a mechanism for installing typical *nix apps on MacOSX.

While some may dispute my claim, I hold that apt is the best package installer to be found. It is without question in the highest echelon of package manaegers.

APT, is a system for managing Software Packages.

Software packages, as distributed under say Ubuntu linux (based on Debian linux) are binary packages (they are already compiled into standard executables) unlike the port management tools such as is available currently for OS X.

Because software packages are pre-compiled against a set of libraries, the APT has to be super snazzy smart and be able to work out all the library dependencies and manage them. It is *very* slick. If you have some libraries but not the others, when you use APT to install a program it will also install the missing libraries and any others that need updating to the newer version that the package was compiled with.

In the reverse process, when you remove a package, the APT system can also check the libraries in your system and if something is not required it will remove and clean up your system as well.

As I have said, very slick.

Work has forced me to use Dell laptops, but this meant I forced it to run Ubuntu Linux. This underlying APT system with the graphical software update program and synaptec package manager makes Ubuntu scary easy to update and add to and really is the best competition to the Mac way OS X gives us.

I have tried other Linux distros and find the whole Ubuntu polish on the underlying package management system to be the best.

I have tried Desktop BSD and PC BSD and they are so far behind Ubuntu in a "Just works" or "Don't crash out on inability to handle dependency libraries" that they look very primitive from the end user standpoint.

I have also tried Fink and Darwin Ports on OS X and they fit a need but also are no where near the polish and level of an Ubuntu APT package management system.

Imagine Darwin Ports where repositories hold pre-compiled binaries of all the ports available for all the OS versions and all the processors and the end user doesn't need to know anything about the back end.

They simply type:

apt-get install someprogram

and someprogram gets installed correctly, works right away, and in only the time to download the file, not download source, and then compile and sometimes crash-out during the compile process with arcane errors the end use has to try and solve. (which most can not or simply won't.)