APT user guide and where can I find it?

Question

I am trying to get hold of the APT user guide to browse some of the more advanced options other than just apt-get etc. however whenever I type man aptI get a message telling me manpage is not loaded. I know the command works as man sudo works fine.

I've tried sudo apt-get install apt-doc which tells me apt-doc is already the newest version. 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded

Is there a local storage area for these manuals or someway I can load it?

Answer 1

I am running natty and the man page is included in the package apt

The content of the page is

apt(8)
apt(8)

NAME apt - Advanced Package Tool

SYNOPSIS apt

DESCRIPTION APT is a management system for software packages. For normal day to day package management there are several frontends available, such as apti‐ tude(8) for the command line or synaptic(8) for the X Window System. Some options are only implemented in apt-get(8) though.

SEE ALSO apt-cache(8), apt-get(8), apt.conf(5), sources.list(5), apt_prefer‐ ences(5), apt-secure(8)

DIAGNOSTICS apt returns zero on normal operation, decimal 100 on error.

BUGS This manpage isn't even started.

   See  <http://bugs.debian.org/apt>.  If you wish to report a bug

in apt, please see /usr/share/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt or the reportbug(1) command.

AUTHOR apt was written by the APT team .

Debian GNU/Linux 16 June 1998
apt(8)

So basically, if you have the man pages for apt-cache, apt-get, apt.conf, sources.list, apt-prefer-ences and apt-secure, you have the documentation.

See also : online man page

Answer 2

The binaries provided by the apt package are apt-config, apt-key, apt-get, apt-cdrom, apt-cache, and apt-mark. Each command has its own manpage that you can get for example with man apt-get. In addition, further man pages describe archive authentification (man apt-secure) and the preferences (man apt_preferences).

The package apt-doc only provides the user guide in several languages (which you can find in /usr/share/doc/apt-doc), it does not offer much information for advanced usage.