Updating and installing package on debian machine

Its very simple :)
APT (Advance Package Tool) is a free user interface which is used in debian machine to install/remove/update any software. For the same in Red Hat machine is "yum".

How to search a package and Install?

Points :

1. $ apt-cache search "Is the command to search a package"
2. $ apt-get install "Is the command to install a package"
3. apt-cache - query the APT cache
4. apt-cache search/madison are two important commands you should know
5. $ apt-cache search - "Performs a full text search on all available package lists for the POSIX regex pattern given"
6. $ apt-cache madison - "Command attempts to mimic the output format and a subset of the functionality of the Debian archive management tool, madison. It displays available versions of a package in a tabular format"
7. sudo apt-get install =version - "Is the command to install a package with a certain version"
8. dpkg -s - "Is the command to about the package"

Example :

$ apt-cache search mysql-server
cacti - Frontend to rrdtool for monitoring systems and services
phpbb2-conf-mysql - Automatic configurator for phpbb2 on MySQL database
torrentflux - web based, feature-rich BitTorrent download manager
mysql-server - MySQL database server (meta package depending on the latest version)
mysql-server-5.0 - MySQL database server binaries

$ apt-cache madison mysql-server
mysql-server | 5.0.96-0ubuntu3 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main Packages
mysql-server | 5.0.96-0ubuntu3 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
mysql-server | 5.0.51a-3ubuntu5 | http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages

Now if you want to install a certain version package, you should use
$ apt-get install mysql-server=5.0.96-0ubuntu3

Command to know about the package
$ dpkg -s mysql-server

References

1. http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/man8/apt-cache.8.html

2. http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/hardy/man8/apt-get.8.html