[ Thanks to Amy Newman for this link. ]
“Debian’s package tools (dpkg, the APT suite and utilities like aptitude) make the basics of installing and managing packages very easy. When you want to do more complex things, however, they’re still easy(ish), but the options or tools you want are not as well-advertised.
“One thing that is often useful is to know why a package was installed. To find out, we want to use the aptitude utility, which will provide this very easily and quickly. Use aptitude why packagename to find out what package requires or suggests the package.”
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
LinuxToday is a trusted, contributor-driven news resource supporting all types of Linux users. Our thriving international community engages with us through social media and frequent content contributions aimed at solving problems ranging from personal computing to enterprise-level IT operations. LinuxToday serves as a home for a community that struggles to find comparable information elsewhere on the web.
Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.