console-apt (was: dist-upgrade-except-foo...)

[Heather <star@starshine.org>]

> Heather <star@starshine.org> writes:
> 
> > btw, I really enjoy using console-apt most because it doesn't just *do* the
> > load, it shows you what dependencies it had to tag first.  This gives me 
> > a nice chance to do stuff in small bursts most of the time, rather than 
> > trust dist-upgrade ... which I do use, but only rarely.
> 
> I had a bad experience with console-apt the first time I used it, but maybe 
> I should give it another try some time.  But I like aptitude, because it 
> doesn't do *anything* automatically - you have to select all the 
> dependencies yourself. Which is great if you're really paranoid, or you 
> like getting your hands dirty.
> 
> Hubert

This isn't a terribly laptop-ish subject anymore, if in fact, it ever was.  
Ob laptop: I sometimes make myself popular at installfests by having a local 
  mirror of Potato on my laptop, setup for http: transmission.  Installfests
  often have a local hub but no internet connection.  console-apt makes it
  much easier for newbies to use Debian's product descriptions and learn
  a bit, while picking what they want and not getting too freaked about the
  scary ol' bash prompt.

If you last used it before about February or so (maybe earlier...) its 
interface has changed immensely, and is a lot more like aptitude now.  It 
even has real menus.  

Avoiding *having* to tag all the deps myself was why I switched to debian
in the first place.  But capt, at least in its present state, does not 
actually begin the download without having you confirm... you have a chance
to bail on evil selections.

For example, carefully picking things from woody that won't provoke a libc
change.

I have a few wishes about capt - I wish they'd left the description the old
way when they added all the features, since it was *much* easier to read 
longer descriptions before. (I would accept it if descriptions popped up 
that way only when you have descriptions off, and ask for the description
on one thing.  But right now it only has a mode toggle.)  If it encounters 
glitches that would cause apt-get to spout some interesting comment and 
maybe prompt, I wish it would give me the same commentary and prompt, rather 
than bail (ungracefully to the shell, in some cases).  OTOH I like that much 
better than it just doing the default thing (probably just what I didn't 
want).  And if I'm sure if I gave myself a bit of free time (ha!) I'd figure 
out where to set its colors, and change them.

But it sure beats the crap out of memorizing the availables list.

* Heather Stern * star@ many places...