apt terminal command on Linux Mint. Although this isn't the only method to install applications on Linux, it's often the most convenient for certain types of software.1: execute the following command [how?] to install Krita, for example, on your PC:
apt install kritaYou'll be asked for your sudoer password.
2: you'll then be asked whether or not to proceed. Type the letter y and press the Enter key to proceed. Alternatively, you can simply press Enter key, because "yes" is the default (indicated by the upper case letter Y).
![A terminal command showing the output of the command "apt install krita": it's a long text that reads: virtual@curiosities:~$ apt install krita [sudo] password for virtual-curiosities: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: krita-data libebur128-1 libkseexpr-data libkseexpr4 libkseexprui4 liblept5 libmlt++7 libmlt-data libmlt7 libmovit8 libopencv-calib3d406t64 libopencv-contrib406t64 libopencv-dnn406t64 libopencv-features2d406t64 libopencv-flann406t64 libopencv-highgui406t64 libopencv-ml406t64 libopencv-objdetect406t64 libopencv-video406t64 libqt5opengl5t64 libquazip5-1t64 librtaudio6 libsox-fmt-alsa libsox-fmt-base libsox3 libtesseract5 libturbojpeg Suggested packages: krita-l10n libquazip-doc libsox-fmt-all The following NEW packages will be installed: krita krita-data libebur128-1 libkseexpr-data libkseexpr4 libkseexprui4 liblept5 libmlt++7 libmlt-data libmlt7 libmovit8 libopencv-calib3d406t64 libopencv-contrib406t64 libopencv-dnn406t64 libopencv-features2d406t64 libopencv-flann406t64 libopencv-highgui406t64 libopencv-ml406t64 libopencv-objdetect406t64 libopencv-video406t64 libqt5opengl5t64 libquazip5-1t64 librtaudio6 libsox-fmt-alsa libsox-fmt-base libsox3 libtesseract5 libturbojpeg 0 upgraded, 28 newly installed, 0 to remove and 136 not upgraded. Need to get 87,5 MB of archives. After this operation, 192 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n]](https://www.virtualcuriosities.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/apt-install-krita-linux-mint-20250316.webp)
apt install krita on Linux Mint.How Does Apt Install Work?
The command apt install krita will install Krita through the Aptitude package manager (apt).
It's important to keep in mind that krita, in this case, isn't the name of the application but an identifier. Observe how it's all lower case. If you tried to install Krita or KRITA it wouldn't work. It must be krita. In general, when you do things on the terminal, you'll use lower case words.
The package manager will search for the software by the provided identifier on your registered online software repositories via the Internet. This means you can't install anything while you're offline. Each Linux distribution comes with a preconfigured set of repositories, and it's possible, and sometimes necessary, to add custom repositories for software that doesn't exist in the default repos.
Each piece of the software that can be installed individually from the repository is called a package. In this case, we're installing the krita package with the Aptitude package manager. Software can be extremely complex, so developers often base their software on software made by other developers.
For example, the programs that make the buttons, menus, scroll bars, and so on work on Krita weren't programmed by Krita. They are a general-purpose GUI toolkit called Qt. When you install Krita, you also install Qt in one form or another, since Krita depends on Qt's programs in order to work.
On Windows, it's common to make an installer that just puts all dependencies as libraries (.dll's) in the same folder as the main program, which means if you have 5 different applications that use the same Qt, you'll have five different copies of Qt.
In some case it's possible to put the .dll inside the main program's file, a practice called static linking. This is unusual on Linux because the way open source software is licensed wouldn't allow merging one program with the other in an inseparable way, thus the common method is the opposite: dynamically linking.
On Linux, the package manager handles installing dependencies automatically, so when you install Krita, Aptitude automatically installs Qt, and anything that Qt requires.
In rare cases, a package may require on some packages that can't co-exist with other packages in the same system due to version conflicts. If this happens, you'll be asked whether to remove the conflicting packages to proceed with the installation. If, for example, there is a conflict with the Qt that Krita uses, doing this and removing Qt will also uninstall Krita, since Krita can't work without Qt.
This can lead to a very dangerous problem: if the package is broken in such way that requires removing essential packages, you may be asked to remove something that the distribution has marked as essential for the system to function. Such packages include, for example, the desktop environment responsible for displaying your taskbar, and even the package that shows your login screen (yes, you can uninstall that on Linux). Although it's possible to do this without breaking the system, that requires actually understanding the technical details of what you're doing. This specific problem has led some new Linux users to accidentally destroy their operating system in the past. Just keep in mind that if something asks you to remove essential packages, you should probably try to find another way to install it or ask for help in an online forum.
If everything succeeds, the package manager will automatically download all packages needed, check if they were downloaded correctly (e.g. if they aren't corrupted or haven't been tampered with, for safety), and run install scripts to put their files in your operating system.
It's worth noting that in some cases a software has a new version available on their website that isn't available on the repository yet. That is, through Aptitude, you can't install the latest version of software, because it must go through the maintainer of the repository first. If you want to install the latest version of something, there are other distribution methods available on Linux, such as Appimages, Flatpaks, and Snaps. Depending on the software, you may be able to simply download the source code and build or run it without requiring anything fancier, which may sound complicated, but in some cases just requires a one or two terminal commands.