A few weeks ago, we saw how to find out to which PPA / repository a package belongs to in Ubuntu / Debian. But how about getting a list of packages available in a PPA / repository?

We've actually blogged about apt-fast back in 2009 but since then, the script has received some important changes so I've wanted to update our readers with its current status.

When you want to compile something from source in Ubuntu/Debian, the easiest way to install the dependencies required to compile it is to run (sudo) "apt-get build-dep PACKAGE_NAME". But there is no built-in command to remove these dependencies (like apt-get remove-dep).

apt-fast is a shell script to accelerate apt-get downloads using Axel, a command line download accelerator. Based on apt-fast, some other scripts have been created and I though they are worth mentioning:

apt-proz - which is maintained in a PPA by Damar Riyadi (thanks for the tip!), who also maintains apt-fast in his repository -, uses ProZilla to handle the downloads and Damar says it's faster (at least for him) then apt-fast (using Axel). You can get apt-proz from this PPA: ppa:tldm217/tahutek.net, then to use it, simply replace "apt-get" with "apt-proz" when installing / upgrading a package.

apt-metalink allows you to download deb packages from several sources concurrently by using repository mirrors (you'll have to add them manually in the sources.list file). It uses Aria2 to download the files and it has an extra feature compared to apt-fast and apt-proz: it can check the hash of the downloaded files. For more info and usage, see apt-metalink @ Github.

Remember apt-fast? Allow me to remind you: apt-fast is a simple bash script that speeds up apt-get download speed (so you would run "sudo apt-fast install firefox" to install Firefox for example) by using Axel, a command line application which accelerates HTTP/FTP downloads by using multiple sources for one file. The author claims it's roughly 26x faster than the normal apt-get and I don't know if that's true, but a lot of users are reporting visible download speed improvements

A while back, Apt-Fast got full Apt-Get syntax replacement and now you can finally install Apt-Fast from a PPA so it's easier to install, even by non-technical users.

Win-Get is a automatic software installer and package manager for Windows inspired by apt-get. Using win-get, you can install packages in WINE just like with apt-get:

win-get install firefox vlc

win-get search APPLICATION
win-get update

While many believed "aptitude" will soon replace "apt-get" given the fact that it's a lot "smarter", it seems that's not the case in Ubuntu - in fact it's quite the opposite: aptitude has been removed from Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat though it is still available in the repositories.

Apt-linker is a Chrome extensions which turns "apt-get install" text from websites into apt:// links, meaning you'll be able to click any "apt-get install" line to install applications instead of having to copy/paste the lines into a terminal.

The extension has a side effect for bloggers: if you try to edit a post which has some "apt-get install" text, it will show up as blank. Other than that, the extension works great and if you follow tutorials from forums / blogs constantly, you'll find it a real time-saver.

Apt-linker works in Google Chrome / Chromium on any Debian based Linux distribution (Ubuntu and so on).

Install Apt-linker Chrome extension.