The latest version of APT can be downloaded from Softpedia

Apr 7, 2014 07:02 GMT  ·  By

APT (Advanced Package Tool), a set of core tools inside Debian that makes it possible to install, remove, and keep applications up to date, has finally reached version 1.0.

Advanced Package Tool was launched back in 1998, and 16 years later it finally reached version 1.0. The APT developers didn't really care about version numbers and the fact that the builds always started with 0 didn't really bother them.

APT is a really old tool that was designed as a command-line application by the Debian developers. It serves a very important purpose and it's probably the best known package manager out there. It's being used in many Linux distributions and it gets updated periodically with new features.

If you are new to Linux, you might not have had any contact with it, or at least you think you haven’t. It's actually being used by a lot of other applications out there, like Synaptic or Ubuntu Software Center. They may have nice interfaces and cool features, but they wouldn't work without APT.

The developers also have a very nice sense of humor. The first release of APT (Advanced Package Tool) was exactly 16 years ago and they took their time, it seems.

“After much discussion, the deity team has now picked an official stanza on what a version number says about the stability and quality of a software product: 16 years after the initial announcement[0] we are pleased to announce apt in version ‘1.0.0.0b’ as a birthday present to everyone caring deeply about numbers.”

“The big news for this version is that we included a new ‘apt’ binary that combines the most commonly used commands from apt-get and apt-cache. The commands are the same as their apt-get/apt-cache counterparts but with slightly different configuration option,” said the developers in the official announcement.

It will take a while until the new version is packaged and shipped in Linux distributions across the world, but that should happen soon enough. It's not like APT still needs testing like any rookie application out there.

The developers have explained that the APT binary now supports the following commands: list (similar to dpkg list), search (like apt-cache search, but displays results alphabetical), show, update (with color output), install, remove, upgrade, full-upgrade, and edit-sources.

A complete list of changes and updates can be found in the official announcement. Download APT (Advanced Package Tool) 1.0 right now from Softpedia.