aptitude

• Ubuntu
• apt-get
• dpkg

Get the version of package that is available:

aptitude search <package> -F "%p %V"

Install specific version:

aptitude install <package>=<version>

Display the versions that will be upgraded

aptitude -ys safe-upgrade

Clean output of packages to be upgraded, and what versions

aptitude -ysV safe-upgrade | egrep "\[.*\s.*\]" | sed -e 's/^[[:space:]]*//' | sort

Grep it down to a list of LAMP packages:

egrep -i "(apache|sql|php|ssl|percona)"

Search on installed packages, and display results in batch-friendly output:

aptitude search '~idvd_info' -F %p

Remove all the data installed by a package:

aptitude purge dvd_info

Download a package and its dependencies:

aptitude -yd install <package>