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Synaptic Package Manager

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Also known as Synaptic

Gtk GUI front end for APT

Key facts

Original authors
Alfredo Kojima, Gustavo Niemeyer and Michael Vogt
Developer
Canonical Ltd
Initial release
November 13, 2001 ; 24 years ago ( 2001-11-13 )
Stable release
0.91.7 / April 6, 2025 ; 14 months ago ( 2025-04-06 )
Written in
C , C++ , Python
Operating system
Debian and derivatives
Available in
English
Type
Package manager
License
GNU GPLv2
Website
github .com /mvo5 /synaptic /wiki
Repository
github .com /mvo5 /synaptic

via Wikipedia infobox

Official website

Synaptic Package Manager - Home

nongnu.org

Link to the official site · 2,277 chars · not written by Vinony

Source code

Synaptic is a graphical package management tool based on GTK and APT. Synaptic enables you to install, upgrade and remove software packages in a user-friendly way. Synaptic was developed by Alfredo K. Kojima from Connectiva. I completed his port to GTK and added some new features. Connectiva continuted to support the project with contributions from Gustavo Niemeyer for some time after that. See the NEWS file for modern user visible changes. See Contributing.md for how to contribute or get in touch. By default synaptic uses pkexec to obtain root privileges, with run0 as a fallback when available. Synaptic is used very much like apt/apt-get. Aside from a graphical interface, another key difference is it let's you stage several changes and only applies package changes when you click apply. Synaptic display the main package list according to the filter you selected. The most simple filter is of course "All packages". But there are much more filters than that :) You can view the predefined filters and make your own filters by clicking on "Filters" above the main package list. On a Debian system, you can have more than one "release" in your sources.list file. You can choose which one to use in the "Distribution" tab in the preferences dialog.

Excerpt from the source-code README · 3,293 chars · not written by Vinony

Wikidata facts

Image
Synaptic screenshot.png
Show 6 more facts
inception
2001-00-00
source code repository URL
code.launchpad.net/synaptic
Commons category
Synaptic
software version identifier
0.91.7
Commons gallery
Synaptic
Sources (5)

via Wikidata · CC0

~2 min read

Article

Synaptic is a GTK-based graphical user interface designed for the APT package manager used by the Debian Linux distribution and its derivatives. Synaptic is usually used on systems based on deb packages but can also be used on systems based on RPM packages. It can be used to install, remove and upgrade software packages and to add repositories.

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