Synaptic

Synaptic is the GUI front end for the apt-get application, the package manager used in Debian distributions. There are other ways to download applications, but apt-get is probably the most common way to do it.

I use Synaptic because I think it's easier and more convenient than using apt-get commands.

Synaptic in Debian Etch is showing me that there are over 18,000 packages available for free download. Without ever walking down a software aisle in an electronics store, I have free access to just about any application I'll ever need.

Of course this is one of the main reasons why I use Linux instead of Windows or a Mac.

It's important that a user understands what Synaptic does and how it works, and learning a bit about apt-get is a big part of that. The main idea is that each Linux distro has these application vaults called repositories. Synaptic, the graphical front-end to apt-get, let's you download applications from those repos.

For each Debian-based Linux system, the list of repos that apt-get uses are contained in the /etc/apt/sources.lst file. You can add or remove repos from that list, if you want to.

As with Windows, the apps on your Linux system might need to be upgraded from time to time. With Synaptic, all you do is click on the "Reload" button, and Synaptic will find all of the latest packages that are available to you from the repos. Then you can choose which upgrades to do, or which new packages to download.

Synaptic lets you look for packages in different categories, or you can search for individual ones by name. It can show you all kinds of info about any package to help you decide whether or not it's something you want.

The same things that Synaptic does can be done from the command line with apt-get commands.

Here's a screen shot of Synaptic: