It's been a long time since I've needed to use either. Instead I typically use Synaptic Package Manager, Mint's Software Manager, or gdebi. Guess I'm just a filthy casual.
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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The binary is called apt-get. There are others like apt-cache etc.
Apt is a script that just figures out which binary to use and passes the arguments on.
- apt update -> apt-get update
- apt policy -> apt-cache policy
You know, I thought I knew why, but this was new information to me, so I guess I didn't.
Thanks for sharing this concise explico!
These days, apt is for humans whereas apt-get is for scripts. apt's output is designed for humans and may change between releases, whereas apt-get is guaranteed to remain consistent to avoid breaking scripts.
apt combines several commands together. For example, you can use it to install packages from both repos and local files (e.g. apt install ./foo.deb) whereas apt-get is only for packages from repos and you'd need to use dpkg for local packages.
Huh TIL.
I never considered trying to install a package from a local file through apt, but always dpkg. End result is the same of course. The web suggests dpkg rather than apt as well ( or at least the pages I ended up on ).
Discord is distributed as a .Deb if you don't use flatpak because they can't be bothered to set up a repo.
The very useful thing about local file install is that unlike dpkg, apt will install dependencies automatically
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apt and apt-get both use dpkg internally, but these days it's essentially seen as an implementation detail that regular users don't need to know about.
dpkg doesn't resolve dependencies (that's a feature of apt) which means that if you install a Debian package with dpkg, you'll have to manually install all dependencies first, and they won't be marked as automatically installed (so autoremove won't remove them if they're not needed any more). Using apt solves that.
The web suggests dpkg because either the articles are old, or they're based on outdated knowledge :)
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TIL I'm a script
You forgot to "beep boop." Please report for debugging.
You and me both, makes sense though for me LMAO
I always struggled with captchas and now I know why.
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apt is a newer, more user-friendly front-end for apt-get and apt-cache.
apt = combines commands like install, remove, update, upgrade into one tool, with prettier output
#apt-get = older, lower-level, more script-friendly For normal use, just use apt now. For scripting where 100% backward compatibility matters, use apt-get.
But apt-get also has install, remove, update and upgrade...
Yes, but apt-get is missing search for instance, because that relates to the cache, so apt-cache provides it.
apt combines all those often used commands, and provides a nicer shell presentation.
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Following this post for replies, for a friend of course
You may want to tell your friend to check it now!
Friends says thanks, friend !
apt-get has a fixed format machine parseable output
apts output tries to be more human readable and is subject to change
apt is newer and mostly supersedes apt-get/apt-cache/etc tools, tries to be a more-approachable frontend.
They interoperate though, so if you're happy with using a mix of them, go for it. I generally just use apt.
EDIT: There were also some older attempts to produce a unified frontend, like aptitude.
mostly supersedes apt-get/apt-cache/etc tools,
Except for in scripts. Debian guarantee that the output format of apt-get will never change and thus it's safe to use in scripts that parse the output, whereas they don't have the same guarantee for apt, which can change between releases.
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Me use apt. Why use many letter when few letter do trick?
When working with RHEL I always flip a coin to see if I'm gonna use yum or dnf this time
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jesus I feel old, and I am only in my 30s. I remember not having apt. How young are linux users nowadays?
I got tennis shoes older than you, (literally a pair of original Converse I bought new back in the 1970s). I was there before the original chains of Unix, DOS, and finally Linux were foraged. I saw OS2 die in battle. And I saw the dark time of when paper and pencils and slide rules vanished from this earth.
The knowledge of apt-get and apt only matters to those warriors of the Cli when they wield the sword of sudo to vanquish the evils that exist when upgrading. For they do the bidding of the dark wizards of Dev, holders of the command su.
Now that I have demonstrated my age by showing everyone how senile I am. 'apt install' is aimed at users to give a nicer response to it's use. It need not be backwards compatible either. 'Apt-get install' is older and is meant to be usable as a lower level command and to work with other APT based tools.
What does this mean for you today? Not a damn thing. I still always type: sudo apt-get install when using a deb based dsitro out of sheer habit. But it's not needed the vast majority of the unwashed masses. So feel free to just type apt install to help prevent carpel finger nail.
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jesus I feel old, and I am only in my 30s. I remember not having apt. How young are linux users nowadays?
Well... how old were you when you got your first computer? That young.
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I'll just copy whatever is in the guide I'm following at the time.
Here lie dragons. Make sure you understand commands that you run on your computer. π
Cargo-culture is alive and well in the era of LLMs
People don't change. Some people look at what they're repeating and try to understand the why, others blindly do what they are told by whom they deem as authority. LLMs are the latest, earlier were various websites (which LLMs were trained on, uh oh), still before that were the computer magazines with things to type in and the later versions even maybe a free CD of stuff. The printed media was less likely to have malicious things in them, but lord did they have errors, and the right error in the wrong place could ruin someone's day if they just ran it without understanding it.
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How my brain distinguishes them:
apt-get when you want full verbose output
apt when you want to feel fancy with progress bars and colours
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I came in for the jokes but all I found was helpful responses. Did I get the Nazi virus from Reddit?
Use apt in the shell and use apt-get in scripts, because apt has beautiful shell output but it isn't script safe
This is one of the reasons I need to set up Linux at home. I use it at work but who knows what the flavor of the week is?
At this point I canβt tell the difference between yum and rpm and apt and dnf
Edit: realized you meant in the sense of hot swapping flavors after I typed out a whole explanation lol. Should start recommending niche distros and collect package managers like trading cards lol.
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yum = dnf, dnf is just the newer version which was rewritten several times.
apt is a weird attempt to "upgrade" apt-get with better user interface without messing with the compatibility of apt-get used by scripts and whatnot.
Both of these are dependency handling package managers which do all the magic of installing required subpackges when you want something.
rpm is the underlying system package manager which deals with the actual task of installing, removing, and generating packages in the .rpm format. It is analogous to Debian's dpkg which uses the .deb format. It's usually not used by the end user unless you need to play with a package directly like with a .rpm or .deb file.
Hence why some distros (or people) have their own dependency package manager, like zypper on OpenSUSE (rpm) or Aptitude on Debian (deb).
Although I think Aptitude might just be a fancy wrapper for apt lol.
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I know about these and git and flatpaks and snaps and can definitely explain them all to you! But unfortunately, I just remembered I left my oven on...
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