Personally, as a user of Ubuntu, I never use the Ubuntu Software Centre - not even for free software - I much prefer apt-get, and I'm not aware of anything (aside from paid software, which I didn't even know about until you mentioned this) that Ubuntu Software Centre does that apt-get doesn't.
1) Keeps track of system state. Tracks packages installed as dependencies, and remove them when necessary meaning no orphaned packages.
2) Handles recommends well. apt-get fails to handle recommends, which many packages depend on to pull in dependencies.
3) Searching. More intuitive and better formatted than apt-cache search. There is also the text UI when running aptitude directly. For example, how do I find all installed python packages?
$ apt-cache search python
Returns all packages with python in title or description.
$ aptitude search '~ipython'
$ aptitude search python | grep ^i # installed packages are flagged with i on the first lineto look for packages that you have installed use "dpkg -l"
aptitude is otherwise great and I prefer it over apt-get
$ aptitude search '~dautojump'
p autojump - shell extension to jump to frequently used directories
p jumpapplet - autojump notification icon, to jump to frequently used directoriesIf a package depends on a recommendation, then that sounds like a packaging bug. Report it to the package maintainer.
I understand the reasoning in this, the only downside is that it means if I've started to use something that only got installed as a dependency, it can disappear without warning.
"More intuitive and better formatted than apt-cache search."
This is neat, I may start using it.
To be honest, a lot of people have recommended aptitude to me over the years, but I've never seen enough of a benefit to try to override my muscle memory. I guess it's a classic "bicycle problem".
Is this the same as:
"apt-get autoremove"
?
Chose that game after seeing it in the Steam client, but wasn't able to buy it for Linux there.
Great game by the way.