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Re: Release notes



On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 09:37:12PM +0000, Justin B Rye wrote:
> Justin B Rye wrote:
> > Still it seems nobody's interested.  Would it help if I was more
> > specific?  The chapter on upgrading has:
> [...]
> > Patch attached.

> Going back to the aptitude non-olfactory mode nonsense, here's a patch
> for that.

> I'm standardising on "full-console mode", given that nobody has
> suggested anything better.

The reason no one has suggested anything better is that 'visual mode' is the
*canonical name* for running aptitude in this mode.  Please don't have a
proxy battle with the aptitude maintainer via the release notes - if you
disagree with the name "visual mode", please get the aptitude documentation
fixed *first*, rather than inventing inconsistent language that will be used
only in the release notes.

> If you were about to object that the name isn't appropriate when you're in
> an X session, bear in mind that we've already advised people not to run a
> dist-upgrade that way.

That advice should be obsolete with current releases; there's a 'fixme'
already in the release notes about it, which hasn't been reviewed since
2008.  Someone should double-check when removing this warning, but I'm
rather certain that recent display managers don't have this problem.

> This patch also tweaks section 2.1.3:

>   The preferred program for interactive package management from a
>   terminal is _aptitude_. For a non-interactive command line interface
>   for package management, it is recommended to use _apt-get_. [...]

> Obviously, if I say "apt-get purge dbus", it won't perform that action
> "non-interactively", it'll ask "Do you want to continue [Y/n]?" - it's
> just that it won't use a persistent textual UI.  I'm rephrasing it as:

>  The preferred program for interacting with the package database from
>  a terminal is _aptitude_. For individual package management actions,
>  it is recommended to use _apt-get_ on the command line. [...]

I don't think this text is an improvement.  "Individual package management
actions" does not read to me as covering an 'apt-get dist-upgrade' that
upgrades every package on the system.  Nor do I think "interacting with the
package database" is a useful description of when one should prefer aptitude
vs. apt-get - *all* packgae management operations are "interacting with the
package database".

The only case where aptitude should be preferred over apt-get is where the
user wishes to fine-tune the package manager's solution.  "Interactive" vs.
"non-interactive" maps that as well as anything else I can think of, but
perhaps you can think of another way to express this.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com                                     vorlon@debian.org

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