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APT 3.0 Debian Package Manager Released with Revamped Command-Line Interface
APT 3.0 package manager gives users a concise and well-laid-out command-line output when updating, installing, or removing packages via the terminal emulator. The new APT 3.0 command-line interface brings a columnar display that will make it easier for users to scan for a package name.
The revamped command-line interface also features support for colors (red for removals and green for other changes), which makes it easier to distinguish commands at a glance, as well as a smoother install progress bar that uses Unicode blocks.
Linuxiac:
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APT 3.0 Package Manager Officially Launches, This Is What's New
Today is a big day for the Debian and Ubuntu software ecosystems; the APT team has officially unveiled APT 3.0 to the package manager beloved by millions, marking the beginning of a brand-new stable series dedicated to Steve Langasek, longtime Debian and Ubuntu contributor, who passed away on Jan 1, 2025.
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apt 3.0.0 ⁄ Manual do Usuário
Here’s something you don’t see every day: a major update to apt, the default package manager for Debian and derivative Linux distributions. Apt 3.0.0, accepted into Debian Sid (unstable) last Friday (4th), has a special appeal thanks to its revamped UI, featuring columns, padding, and even colors (!) to make outputs easier to read.
LWN coverage:
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What's new in APT 3.0
Debian's Advanced Package Tool (APT) is the suite of utilities that handle package management on Debian and Debian-derived operating systems. APT recently received a major upgrade to 3.0 just in time for inclusion in Debian 13 ("trixie"), which is planned for release sometime in 2025. The version bump is warranted; the latest APT has user-interface improvements, switches to Sequoia to verify package signatures, and includes solver3—a new solver that is designed to improve how it evaluates and resolves package dependencies.
The APT suite includes the high-level apt command-line tool as well as a number of lower-level utilities for configuring APT, managing packages, or querying its internal database (known as the cache). It also includes the libapt-pkg package-management library that is used by alternative frontends to APT, such as Aptitude and Nala. In turn, APT relies on dpkg to actually work with Debian package files (.debs). The relationship between all of Debian's package-management tools is well-described in the Debian FAQ.