{"id":772,"date":"2013-10-09T07:00:31","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelinuxstartup.com\/?p=772"},"modified":"2013-10-19T15:00:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-19T19:00:27","slug":"how-to-find-available-software-from-the-command-line-using-apt-in-ubuntu-13-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelinuxstartup.com\/2013\/10\/09\/how-to-find-available-software-from-the-command-line-using-apt-in-ubuntu-13-04\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Find Available Software from the Command Line using APT in Ubuntu 13.04"},"content":{"rendered":"

When working from the command line you may find that you are wanting to install a specific package for a certain task but do not know what that package is called. There is a way to search through the available packages or software from the repositories in the command line or terminal. This search tool is called apt-cache<\/em>. This tutorial will show you the basic functions of the apt-cache<\/em> command.<\/p>\n

The first thing you may want to do is do a general search. This is done in the example shown below.<\/p>\n

apt-cache search gnome<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The above command will show you many results that may not even have the term gnome in the name of it. In order for the above command to return a package the word gnome can be included in the description or name.<\/p>\n

If you decide that you want to search for a particular term and show results of packages that have the term in their name you can use the\u00a0-n<\/em> parameter as shown below.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

apt-cache -n search gnome<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The above command will only show you results that have “gnome” in the package name. It will return a result such as “telegnome” You can also use the “^” to symbolize “start” and the “$” to symbolize “end” this is shown in the two examples below.<\/p>\n

apt-cache -n search ^gnome<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This will return results such as “gnome radio”.<\/p>\n

apt-cache -n search gnome$<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This will return results such as “xchat-gnome”.<\/p>\n

Once you have found the package that you want to install you can simply use the\u00a0apt-get install<\/em> command to do the installation.<\/p>\n

If you have any questions or comments about how to use the\u00a0apt-cache<\/em> command in the terminal don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. Also, if you found this tutorial helpful please like and share so that other people will find this tutorial more easily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When working from the command line you may find that you are wanting to install a specific package for a … <\/p>\n

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