Syntax Description aptitude Running it with no arguments brings up a curses based interface to search, navigate, install, update and otherwise administer packages aptitude install Installing software for your system, installing needed dependencies as well aptitude -d install Download packages to the package cache as necessary, but do not install or remove anything. aptitude remove Removing packages as well as orphaned dependencies aptitude purge Removing packages and orphaned dependencies as well as any configuration files left behind aptitude search Search for packages in the local apt package lists aptitude update Update the local packages lists aptitude upgrade Upgrade any installed packages that have been updated aptitude clean Delete any downloaded files necessary for installing the software on your system aptitude dist-upgrade Upgrade packages, even if it means uninstalling certain packages aptitude show Show details about a package name aptitude autoclean Delete only out-of-date packages, but keep current ones aptitude hold Fix a package at it’s current version, and don’t update it aptitude uses many of the same commands as apt-get. It is not a good idea to use both, you should either use aptitude or apt-get exclusively, or your dependencies might get confused.