synaptic and apt-get (was Re: [PlanetCCRMA] how best to install Ardour?)

[Aaron Heller]

Alex Timmer wrote:

> my $0.02... i stopped using Synaptic since i had a few times problems
> with it (freeze during install, corruption of database etc). with the
> command line i never had these things so far.

Same here.  apt-get is reliable but Synaptic often hangs while 
installing packages.  I now use it only to find and examine dependencies 
of packages, but then use apt-get to do the download and installation 
itself.

Is there anyway to use apt-get or apt-cache to search or browse what 
packages are available from the server?