synaptic and apt-get (was Re: [PlanetCCRMA] how best to install Ardour?)

[David Fraser]

Aaron Heller wrote:

> Alex Timmer wrote:
>
>> my $0.02... i stopped using Synaptic since i had a few times problems
>> with it (freeze during install, corruption of database etc). with the
>> command line i never had these things so far.
>
>
> Same here.  apt-get is reliable but Synaptic often hangs while 
> installing packages.  I now use it only to find and examine 
> dependencies of packages, but then use apt-get to do the download and 
> installation itself.
>
> Is there anyway to use apt-get or apt-cache to search or browse what 
> packages are available from the server?

I find apt-shell is a nice tool ... command line interface, with lots of 
help

David