aptitude is supposed to be a user level program whereas apt-get is supposed to be used by higher level programs. It just turns out apt-get is easy to use so people just use it instead of the higher level managers like aptitude and synaptic.

aptitude is more user-friendly because it adds a layer of abstraction away from apt-get, apt-cache etc..; apt-get is more user-friendly than dpkg for the same reason. It's really down to the user's knowledge and what works best for them. aptitude and apt-get use the same repositories. Let it be clear that aptitude does not itself run apt-get apt-cache etc.. I merely mean to point out that aptitude is a higher level package manager.

The levels of abstraction:

• aptitude - High level of abstraction


• apt-get, apt-cache, etc.


• dpkg - Low level of abstraction