When the Debian distribution was still somewhat small, dselect and dpkg were adequate tools for package management. As the collection of packages has grown in size and complexity these tools are no longer enough to provide a smooth and easy installation.
The Apt project is expected to resolve many of these difficulties by providing a new suite of tools to augment dpkg and provide a better installation tool than is provided by dselect. While a full-screen interface is a part of the design, only the command-line interface apt-get and an apt method for dselect are currently in a useable form. These tools are fully integrated into the current installation process, and have done a lot to improve the installation.
In addition to installing packages, apt-get is an excellent tool for upgrading an existing system. Once you have the tool configured properly, you can upgrade your entire system over the Internet with a single command.
The following pages describe how to set up this package manager as well as just how to use it to install, upgrade and remove packages.