Re: Is apt-get still the cool package installer?

[Nick Boyce <nick@glimmer.adsl24.co.uk>]

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:

> In <[🔎] 4B29BDBE.2090909@glimmer.adsl24.co.uk>, Nick Boyce wrote:
>
>> The main advantage of aptitude over apt-get (IMO) used to be (sarge/etch
>> IIRC) that aptitude added extra info into the apt database flagging
>> packages that were only installed as a dependency of some other
>> explicitly installed package, so that a subsequent 'aptitude remove' of
>> the explicitly-installed top-level package would also remove the
>> dependency packages because apt now knew the packages were no longer
>> needed.  It kept cruft out of the system.
>>
>> Has that specific functionality been rolled back into apt-get ?
> 
> Yes.  Although it is not entirely obvious.  (apt-get autoremove) will remove 
> packages that are marked automatically installed but do not have anything 
> currently depending on them.

Thanks :)
That's good to know. Now maybe I can remove the wrapper script for
apt-get that I put on some of our Debian boxes at work for the benefit
of other sysadmins who were accustomed to using apt-get, which simply
displays "You probably want to call 'aptitude' rather than 'apt-get',
because .. blah blah".

Cheers
Nick Boyce
-- 
"You're not drunk, if you can lie on the floor without holding on"
   - Dean Martin