The release of the APT 3.2.0 (Advanced Package Tool) package management tool has been formed based on changes from the experimental branch 3.1. The new version is expected to be integrated into Debian Unstable and Testing, and will also be included in the upcoming Debian 14 release; a similar version 3.1.16 is used in Ubuntu 26.04.
A key change is the development of the new dependency resolver Solver3, which is now used by default. The mechanism is based on backtracking algorithms, which have increased the accuracy of conflict resolution, improved package version selection, and accelerated operation execution — performance has roughly doubled in tests. Support for multi-stage updates has also been implemented, protection against the manual removal of installed packages, and a more aggressive cleaning of unused dependencies.
New diagnostic commands apt why and apt why-not have been added, allowing users to determine the reasons for a package's installation or the failure to install it. Unlike similar tools in aptitude, they rely on the actual data from the dependency solver rather than probabilistic estimates.
Repository management tools have been expanded: .sources files now include Include and Exclude options for creating whitelists and blacklists of packages. Support for CPU microarchitecture variants (amd64v1–amd64v4) has also been implemented, allowing optimized package builds for specific x86-64 levels.
Some changes relate to the management of operation history. Commands history-list, history-info, as well as rollback and redo tools (history-undo, history-redo, history-rollback) have been added, enhancing the package system's manageability and simplifying state recovery.
Among other improvements:
- support for HTTPS has been added in the dselect utility;
- protection against the system entering sleep mode during dpkg operations has been implemented;
- it is now possible to run apt-daily when the laptop is connected to a power source;
- a logging mechanism with performance metrics in JSONL format has been introduced.
Source: linux.org.ru
