Linux Mint apt

ID

apt-mint

Home page

https://github.com/kdeldycke/meta-package-manager/issues/52

Version requirement

>= 1

Platforms

🅱️ BSD · 🐧 Linux · ⨂ Unix

Operations

installed · outdated · orphans · search · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove · sync · cleanup · doctor

purl types

pkg:apt-mint · pkg:deb

CLI name

apt

Every call

apt --quiet <command>

Issues and PRs

📦 manager: dpkg-based

Source

meta_package_manager/managers/apt.py

Linux Mint’s apt, a wrapper script that shadows Debian’s apt.

Mint ships its own apt command reusing the name but not the behavior of APT, so only version probing and search parsing are overridden here; every other operation is inherited.

Note

Mint’s apt --version prints no apt <version> line, so the version is read from apt version apt: the version of the apt package itself.

Caution

Search rows are <status> <name> - <description> with no version column and no --full mode, so extended matching is unsupported and results carry no version.

What mpm adds to apt-mint

Through mpm, apt-mint gains --extended search, to match against package descriptions.

Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover apt-mint alongside apt and any other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your apt-mint commands, in mpm

You already know apt-mint: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…

With apt-mint

With mpm

List what’s installed

apt list --installed

mpm --apt-mint installed

List outdated packages

apt list --upgradable

mpm --apt-mint outdated

Search for a package

/usr/local/bin/apt search sed

mpm --apt-mint search sed

Install a package

sudo apt --yes install git

mpm install pkg:apt-mint/git

Upgrade one package

sudo apt --yes install --only-upgrade git

mpm --apt-mint upgrade <pkg>

Upgrade everything

sudo apt --yes upgrade

mpm --apt-mint upgrade --all

Remove a package

sudo apt --yes remove git

mpm remove pkg:apt-mint/git

List orphaned dependencies

apt autoremove --simulate

mpm --apt-mint orphans

Clear caches

sudo apt --yes clean

mpm --apt-mint cleanup --cache

Run health checks

apt-get check

mpm --apt-mint doctor

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations

Operation

Supported

Notes

installed

✓

outdated

✓

orphans

✓

search

✓

extended search backfilled by mpm

install

✓

upgrade

✓

upgrade_all

✓

remove

✓

--orphans also drops the package’s orphaned dependencies

sync

✓

cleanup

✓

--orphans runs the system-wide orphan sweep

doctor

✓

Selecting and configuring apt-mint

Deselect apt-mint for a single run with --no-apt-mint, or persist the choice in your configuration:

[mpm]
apt-mint = false

The arguments and environment variables listed in the box atop this page are forced on every apt-mint call, so runs stay quiet, non-interactive and reproducible: the defaults you would set in CI anyway.

Keep it enabled but tune how mpm drives it with a per-manager override:

[mpm.managers.apt-mint]
timeout = 900

mpm config-template apt-mint prints every overridable attribute as a ready-to-paste block.

Recipes

A few jobs you would otherwise script around apt-mint, one mpm command each:

  • Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --apt-mint dump apt-mint.toml, then mpm restore apt-mint.toml on the next one.

  • Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --apt-mint sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).

  • Gate CI on health: mpm --apt-mint doctor relays Linux Mint apt’s own diagnosis and exits non-zero on trouble.

Privilege escalation

System-wide manager: mpm wraps its privileged operations in sudo out of the box. Instead of letting the tool prompt mid-run, mpm primes the credential cache up-front, with a single branded password prompt at most. Turn escalation off for rootless setups with --no-sudo or the per-manager sudo override.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown

State of Linux Mint apt’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: ➖ N/A (follows apt)

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

  • Registry: Distro binary archives (pkg:deb, pkg:rpm, pkg:alpm, pkg:apk)

  • Retraction: Index revert: removal is an archive operation and the mirror is rebuilt without the package. Debian, for one, requires filing an RM: bug against ftp.debian.org (developers-reference)

  • Publish date: ❌ the version string is the distro maintainer’s build, carrying no upstream publication date

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --allow-unsupported-managers opts back in.

Version probe

The version is extracted from the output of apt version apt with:

r"apt\s+(?P<version>\S+)"

Changelog

  • 7.4.0 (2026-07-25)

    • Plain cleanup no longer removes orphaned packages: their native sweeps moved behind cleanup --orphans. This also stops emerge’s cleanup from triggering its pre-depclean world upgrade unless --orphans is given.

  • 5.13.0 (2023-04-04)

    • Fix parsing of search results for apt and apt-mint. Closes #881 and #966.

  • 5.0.1 (2022-04-28)

    • Fix commands incompatible with --yes option. Closes #625.

  • 4.13.0 (2022-04-16)

    • Fix search. Closes #572 and #573.

    • Fix --apt-mint shortcut option.