If you have come across a tutorial or just someone on a forum who tells you to install something in Debian/Ubuntu that involves using apt-get, it is ok for you but when they tell you that you need to use a caret symbol (^) at the end, that’s where you become curious. What is even more weird is that when you search for the name of the package that the given command seems to install cannot be found using apt-cache search. e.g. You will see this used most often when someone tells you how to install LAMP server setup (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) by using the command “sudo apt-get install lamp-server^”. If you miss the caret at the end or try to search for lamp-server, it just doesn’t work.
Well, the answer is that the caret symbol is a short form for performing a task that otherwise the program “tasksel” would have done with the given package name. tasksel is a program to ease the installation of commonly used things that go together for a particular use. e.g. In the above instance of LAMP, the four packages and their dependencies are always used together, so tasksel provides a sort of a meta-package or meta-task that can be run by the user with a single command and then tasksel will take it upon itself to install all of them and set them up correctly for your use. Now, apt-get provides a way to perform that same task by itself without you having to install tasksel first and all you have to do is to give that same package name to apt-get but just append a caret at the end to tell apt-get that it is a tasksel package/task identifier and not a regular package name in debian/ubuntu repositories.
Hope that clears things up 
[...] © Shantanu Goel | What does caret (^) in an apt-get command mean? [...]
And get a list of available tasks with:
cat /usr/share/tasksel/*.desc | grep Task
Yabbut, when I run that command I only get language based stuff:
$ cat /usr/share/tasksel/*.desc | grep Task
Task: albanian-desktop
Task: amharic
Task: amharic-desktop
Task: amharic-kde-desktop
Task: arabic
Task: arabic-desktop
Task: arabic-kde-desktop
Task: basque
Task: basque-desktop
Task: basque-kde-desktop
Task: belarusian
Task: belarusian-desktop
Task: belarusian-kde-desktop
Task: bengali
Task: bengali-desktop
Task: bengali-kde-desktop
Task: bosnian
Task: bosnian-desktop
Task: brazilian-portuguese
Task: brazilian-portuguese-desktop
Task: brazilian-portuguese-kde-desktop
Task: british
Task: british-desktop
Task: british-kde-desktop
Task: bulgarian
Task: bulgarian-desktop
Task: bulgarian-kde-desktop
Task: catalan
Task: catalan-desktop
Task: catalan-kde-desktop
Task: chinese-s
Task: chinese-s-desktop
Task: chinese-s-kde-desktop
Task: chinese-t
Task: chinese-t-desktop
Task: chinese-t-kde-desktop
Task: croatian
Task: croatian-desktop
Task: croatian-kde-desktop
Task: cyrillic
Task: cyrillic-desktop
Task: cyrillic-kde-desktop
Task: czech
Task: czech-desktop
Task: czech-kde-desktop
Task: danish
Task: danish-desktop
Task: danish-kde-desktop
Task: database-server
Task: desktop
Task: dns-server
Task: dutch
Task: dutch-desktop
Task: dutch-kde-desktop
Task: dzongkha-desktop
Task: dzongkha-kde-desktop
Task: esperanto
Task: esperanto-desktop
Task: estonian
Task: estonian-desktop
Task: estonian-kde-desktop
Task: file-server
Task: finnish
Task: finnish-desktop
Task: finnish-kde-desktop
Task: french
Task: french-desktop
Task: french-kde-desktop
Task: galician
Task: galician-desktop
Task: galician-kde-desktop
Task: georgian-desktop
Task: german
Task: german-desktop
Task: german-kde-desktop
Task: gnome-desktop
Task: greek
Task: greek-desktop
Task: greek-kde-desktop
Task: gujarati
Task: gujarati-desktop
Task: gujarati-kde-desktop
Task: hebrew
Task: hebrew-desktop
Task: hebrew-gnome-desktop
Task: hebrew-kde-desktop
Task: hindi
Task: hindi-desktop
Task: hindi-kde-desktop
Task: hungarian
Task: hungarian-desktop
Task: hungarian-kde-desktop
Task: icelandic
Task: icelandic-desktop
Task: icelandic-kde-desktop
Task: indonesian-desktop
Task: irish
Task: irish-desktop
Task: irish-kde-desktop
Task: italian
Task: italian-desktop
Task: italian-kde-desktop
Task: japanese
Task: japanese-desktop
Task: japanese-gnome-desktop
Task: japanese-kde-desktop
Task: kannada-desktop
Task: kannada-kde-desktop
Task: kazakh-kde-desktop
Task: kde-desktop
Task: khmer
Task: khmer-desktop
Task: khmer-kde-desktop
Task: korean
Task: korean-desktop
Task: korean-gnome-desktop
Task: korean-kde-desktop
Task: kurdish
Task: kurdish-desktop
Task: kurdish-kde-desktop
Task: laptop
Task: latvian
Task: latvian-desktop
Task: latvian-kde-desktop
Task: lithuanian
Task: lithuanian-desktop
Task: lithuanian-kde-desktop
Task: lxde-desktop
Task: macedonian
Task: macedonian-desktop
Task: macedonian-kde-desktop
Task: mail-server
Task: malayalam
Task: malayalam-desktop
Task: malayalam-gnome-desktop
Task: malayalam-kde-desktop
Task: manual
Task: marathi
Task: marathi-desktop
Task: nepali-desktop
Task: nepali-kde-desktop
Task: northern-sami
Task: northern-sami-desktop
Task: norwegian
Task: norwegian-desktop
Task: norwegian-kde-desktop
Task: persian
Task: persian-desktop
Task: polish
Task: polish-desktop
Task: polish-kde-desktop
Task: portuguese
Task: portuguese-desktop
Task: portuguese-kde-desktop
Task: print-server
Task: punjabi
Task: punjabi-desktop
Task: punjabi-kde-desktop
Task: romanian
Task: romanian-desktop
Task: romanian-kde-desktop
Task: russian
Task: russian-desktop
Task: russian-kde-desktop
Task: serbian
Task: serbian-desktop
Task: serbian-kde-desktop
Task: slovak
Task: slovak-desktop
Task: slovak-kde-desktop
Task: slovenian
Task: slovenian-desktop
Task: slovenian-kde-desktop
Task: south-african-english-desktop
Task: spanish
Task: spanish-desktop
Task: spanish-kde-desktop
Task: ssh-server
Task: standard
Task: swedish
Task: swedish-desktop
Task: swedish-kde-desktop
Task: tagalog
Task: tamil
Task: tamil-desktop
Task: tamil-gnome-desktop
Task: telugu
Task: telugu-desktop
Task: telugu-gnome-desktop
Task: telugu-kde-desktop
Task: thai
Task: thai-desktop
Task: thai-gnome-desktop
Task: thai-kde-desktop
Task: turkish
Task: turkish-desktop
Task: turkish-kde-desktop
Task: ukrainian
Task: ukrainian-desktop
Task: ukrainian-kde-desktop
Task: vietnamese-desktop
Task: vietnamese-kde-desktop
Task: web-server
Task: welsh
Task: welsh-desktop
Task: xfce-desktop
Task: xhosa-desktop
Task: xhosa-kde-desktop
[...] is a good explanation here. The caret is an abbreviated way of telling the OS to perform a task that would otherwise have [...]
[...] you’re curious, the caret (^) in the command means that it’s a Taskel task. This link has a fairly good explanation of [...]