Apt

Apt is an acronym for Advanced Packaging Tool, a package management system created by the Debian project. Apt greatly simplifies the process of installing and removing software on Unix systems.

There is no apt program per se; on the command line, there are several high-level programs for dealing with packages, notably apt-get and apt-cache. There are also programs that provide a graphical front end to apt, such as synaptic.

Apt was originally designed to work with .deb packages on Debian systems, but it has since been modified to work with RPM packages, and to run on other operating systems such as Mac OS X.

See also

• dpkg, a tool for dealing with Debian packages
• Fink, a project to port Unix software to Mac OS X (it uses apt)

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Apt is also a commune of France, sous-préfecture of the Vaucluse département.