Re: APT [was Re: Is this really the right thing to do?]

["Jules Bean" <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk>]

--On Thu, Dec 3, 1998 12:21 pm +1100 "Craig Sanders" <cas@taz.net.au> wrote:


> On Thu, 3 Dec 1998, Jules Bean wrote:
> 
>> --On Thu, Dec 3, 1998 11:53 am +1100 "Craig Sanders" <cas@taz.net.au>
wrote:
>> 
>> > in short, i'm in favour of tools which summarise package status
>> > information and provide various 'views' of the info, with the aim of
>> > enabling a system admin to make informed and intelligent decisions.
>> >
>> > i'm opposed to the notion of automating the decision.
>>
>> So, presumably, you are not in favour of the current apt-get which
>> automatically gets depended packages (and, under some circumstances
>> will remove packages too).
> 
> you misunderstand.
> 
> if i run "apt-get install foo" then I am choosing to install foo
> and whatever packages it depends upon and also to remove whatever it
> conflicts with.
> 
> apt-get will even prompt me if it has to install or uninstall any
> packages not mentioned on the command line.
> 
> 
> that is a completely different thing to automatically uninstalling
> packages simply because the package manager has noticed that nothing
> depends upon it.

But that is not the feature we're discussing.  If it was, I would agree with
you.

The feature we're discussing is automatically unistalling packages, upon
which nothing currently depends, *and* which are noted as having been
installed in the first place merely to satisfy a dependency.

And certainly I think that a prompt (probably optional) before actually
carrying out this option would be warranted. (As has been noted, the whole
operation would also be optional, of course)

Jules


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|  Julian Bean   | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk        |  TW9 2TF *UK*       |
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