Unix in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

Name

synaptic

Synopsis

synaptic [options]

Graphical frontend for APT. Use in place of apt-get to install, upgrade, or remove packages from your system. With synaptic, you can view a list of all available packages, or you can break the list down in various ways to make it more manageable. From the synaptic window, you can select from a list of categories. The categories are section (e.g., view only development-related packages), package status, alphabetic (e.g., view only packages whose name starts with the letter A), search history, or filter.

If you choose to display by filter, there are a set of predefined filters, or you can define your own. The predefined filters include ones to display all packages, packages marked for a status change, packages that can be configured with debconf (Debian systems only), packages with broken dependencies, and packages that can be upgraded to a later version. You can edit the existing filters or define your own, by selecting Preferences → Filters from the Edit menu.

Once you’ve used the selection criteria to find the list of packages, you can select a single package, or you can select multiple packages by holding down the SHIFT or CTRL key. Like apt-get, first do an update to update the package lists, then you can do an install or upgrade.

To start synaptic from Gnome, select System tools → Synaptic Package Manager from the Application menu. From the KDE menu, select Settings → Extra → Synaptic Package Manager. You can also start the graphical interface ...