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I would like official documentation explaining why Ubuntu uses apt instead of dpkg.

Here's what I've found about each:

dpkg

This package provides the low-level infrastructure for handling the installation and removal of Debian software packages.

apt

This package provides commandline tools for searching and managing as well as querying information about packages as a low-level access to all features of the libapt-pkg library.

Nmath
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AlexPixel
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  • Your official answer is "Which is better to use for the end user? apt or dpkg? And the answer becomes "dpkg is not able to download from source repositories, etc. it's a 'dumb tool' to install Debian packages in .deb format. apt is what actually downloads from the repositories and checks for repository updates, etc. and then knows what to download when you run apt install for a given package. dpkg is the 'dumb tool', whereas apt is the smart tool and can help decipher what dependencies also need installed, etc. and then handle yelling if there's an uninstallable package. – Thomas Ward May 06 '22 at 19:45
  • @ThomasWard is this a point of view or do you have documentation to support this? – AlexPixel May 06 '22 at 19:51
  • See for yourself. You can run man apt and man dpkg -- Ubuntu has both apt and dpkg. All Debian based distributions have both apt and dpkg. apt is just a user friendly, more intelligent, dependency resolving front end for the lower level dpkg. If you want more information, read the duplicate I have posted. Everything you've asked here is covered in the duplicate. – Nmath May 06 '22 at 20:00
  • The phrasing of the question ("A instead of B") is confusing. What leads you to believe that A and B are exclusive? – user535733 May 06 '22 at 20:03
  • @AlexPixel apart from the data you already pulled, manpages and other posts online and here to support it. Plus the fact I'm an Ubuntu Developer and a Debian package maintainer and have been using Ububtu Linux as my primary driver OS since 2009... :P – Thomas Ward May 06 '22 at 23:36
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    Your question is not being answered as you asked it because the premise of the question is wrong. Ubuntu doesn't use apt instead of dpkg, it uses both, and apt relies on dpkg to do the low level package installation steps after apt resolves dependencies and downloads the packages. – user10489 May 08 '22 at 00:05
  • See also:
    • https://askubuntu.com/questions/705885/difference-between-dpkg-i-and-apt-get-install
    • https://askubuntu.com/questions/91205/can-apt-do-everthing-dpkg-can
     – user10489 May 08 '22 at 00:10
  • I'm not blocking it, everyone else is. It is a duplicate, but you aren't reading (or aren't understanding) the other answers to understand why it is a duplicate. And when you re-ask the exact same question without even changing the words, it's certainly a duplicate -- that's why that one got deleted. – user10489 May 08 '22 at 00:21

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