Working on the Command Line

With so much software available for installation, it is no surprise that Debian-based distros have many ways to manage software installation. At their root, however, they all use Debian’s world-renowned Advanced Package Tool (APT). A person posting on Slashdot.com once said, “Welcome to Slashdot. If you can’t think of anything original, just say how much APT rocks and you’ll fit right in.” You see, even though many other distros have tried to equal the power of APT, nothing else even comes close.

Why is APT so cool? Well, it was the first system to properly handle dependencies in software. Other distros, such as Red Hat, used RPM files that had dependencies. For example, an RPM for Gimp would have a dependency on ...

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