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Re: buster and the release notes



On Vi, 03 mai 19, 22:01:23, Paul Gevers wrote:
> 
> 3) in upgrading.dbk there is a section about aptitude. It feels really
> outdated as since 2010 we recommend updating with apt(-get). I never
> used aptitude, is this section still relevant and up-to-date?

I'm assuming you are referring to <section id="review actions">.


Background
----------

This section was important many years ago when:

 a) aptitude was the recommended package manager for dist-upgrades.
 At the time aptitude had a better resolver than APT.
 
 b) APT did not keep track of manually/automatically installed packages. 
 AFAIK aptitude was the first to introduce this.

In the meantime APT's resolver was much improved and is preferred in 
many scenarios because it's more predictable. APT now also has the 
concept of manual/automatic packages and can change the states with 
apt-mark.

AFAIK the database is actually shared with aptitude, so mixing apt(-get) 
and aptitude for typical package management should not be an issue 
anymore (I would avoid it *during* the dist-upgrade, unless apt would 
get stuck somewhere and I would possibly use aptitude's interactive mode 
to fix it).

"Pending actions" is a feature of the aptitude interactive mode, where 
one can schedule several actions (install/remove/etc.) and then instruct 
aptitude to perform them all at once (same as synaptic).

Since APT doesn't know or care about aptitude's pending actions, in my 
opinion there is minimal chance for an impact on the dist-upgrade 
performed with apt, except maybe in some convoluted scenario (e.g. the 
user was about to replace some third-party packages with Debian's 
version, possibly in preparation for the dist-upgrade, but stops before 
applying and then forgets about it.)


Suggestions
-----------

1. At a minimum the sentence about mixing apt and aptitude should be 
removed as it's not applicable anymore.

2. The general recommendation to make sure the system is up-to-date and 
"clean" (including checking for pending actions in aptitude, synaptic 
and other package managers) should be kept.[*]

3. The detailed instructions on how to check for pending actions can 
probably be removed as aptitude users will be familiar with that and apt
users don't need to care.


[*] I seem to remember a section recommending to upgrade the system to 
the latest point release/security updates before the dist-upgrade. It 
would probably make more sense to have it there instead, if that section 
still exists.

Hope this helps,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

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