"Julien BLACHE" <jblache@debian.org> wrote in message [🔎] 87r6mmjoh9.fsf@sonic.technologeek.org">news:[🔎] 87r6mmjoh9.fsf@sonic.technologeek.org...
I am a Debian user in so far as I maintain 0 packages for Debian, and am not a DD. I use aptitude almost exclusively. I install reccomends by default. I rarely have any reason to override that default.Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> wrote:I've read that but I didn't take it into account because people google for docs and they will find documentation recommending apt-get (they usually won'tnotice if the doc is recent or not). Furthermore, there's also the fact that on user forums there are people who will still be recommending apt-get as it's what they are using.So you might be right on your first assertion, but I don't agree with yourconclusion "If doc is the only problem, then it's not a problem".When aptitude came out, we've been told that aptitude was the real apt frontend that apt-get was never meant to be to begin with (apt-get being only a debug/devel tool for libapt) and that it was the tool to use from now on for everybody except maybe for advanced users who will probably stick with apt-get. Either this hasn't got enough publicity, or people decided to stick with apt-get because aptitude didn't cut it. The former case is easy enough to fix before October 1st; the latter might not be that easy to fix, depending on the reasons behind the dislike for aptitude. Now, from the Debian users I know around me, I can tell you that none of them like aptitude, and they especially dislike the "install recommends by default" so-called "feature".
Things just work.I chose to use Aptitude because it worked and the dependency tracking feature was quite nice. (I'll admit that at the time, if you wanted an interactive package selector, your choices wre dselect, and aptitude. IIRC synaptic was not really in great shape at that time, and as you will learn form the rest of this message, would not have been appropriate even if it was in good working order.) Besides I accepted that apt-get was really only ever a minimalistic front-end for the APT package management system. Aptitude is much fuller featured.
Some things to note about me though:I have been using Linux for only ~3 years, and even on day one I was a poweruser. I did not have any UNIX experience, but I had DOS experience, so the command line did not scare me. I decided not to fear things breaking as that is merely an opertunaty to learn how to fix it. So besides a bit a playing with Knoppix, and tomsrtbt, I installed a virtual machine containning a command line only Debian sid. That is what I still use. Yes, I dove right in to sid and never looked back despite having only ~1-2 months of linux experience (and of that, most was only part-time experience).
I don't worry about breakage as it is not my production machine, and is command line only, so a good chunk of the breakage misses me completely.
My main OS is still Windows (unfortuantely), so I learned some commands and whatnot that way. (I do intend to eventually swap, and run a Linux system on the hardware (with a desktop environment), and Windows in a VM, but have not yet done so.)
As for why I chose Debian I honestlly don't rember. I belive it was because of hearing about the nice package management system. (Also, I had previously tried installing RedHat Linux on the metal of that laptop, and the results were awful. Problems with the video settings (X configuration issue I suspect), and an unsupported southbridge.)