Yes somewhat and apt is a wrapper on top of dpkg ... So on a Debian/Ubuntu or related system your common options are: * dpkg * apt-get and apt-cache * aptit

Yes somewhat and apt is a wrapper on top of dpkg ... So on a Debian/Ubuntu or related system your common options are: * dpkg * apt-get and apt-cache * aptitude * synaptic All the apt-based programs use the same /etc/apt/ files. There is a lot of overlap but specific reasons I might use one or the other. I use aptitude to do global updates as in: aptitude update && aptitude safe-upgrade Apt-get has the most commandline options. I have not figured out how to do the following two on aptitude - so just use apt-get: "apt-get dist-upgrade" "apt-get -f" (which is not to say it doesnt - just havent found it in 'the fine manual') Synaptic is fun to browse. almost like an android app store. I use it looking for a fun new game for my kid to play on my laptop, etc. And dpkg is useful for local installs (dpkg -i) and also for dpkg-reconfigure when you have to change something in the config of an installed package. I also deal with yum/rpm (which is a similar pairing as apt/dpkg). I first learned on Debian so I have a fondness for apt. In my experience it is pretty stable and easy to use. When I read the OP I thought the 'actually this shows how cool apt or yum can be to use'.