Re: dselect apt-get coordination

[Bruce Sass <bsass@edmc.net>]

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003, R Ransbottom wrote:

> How do you coordinate apt-get and dselect
> so that they "want" the same packages?
>
> If I understand the apt-get man page
> running "apt-get dselect-upgrade" will
> set up the system per the setting last
> made using dselect.  Correct?

yes

> How do you the inverse?  That is how
> do you alter the dselect database to
> reflect packages installed with apt-get
> or, put another way, to reflect the
> current state of the system?
> (So that a casual use of dselect does
> not materially alter the system.)

Not necessary, APT and dselect use the same DB...
/var/lib/dpkg/status

To figure out what is available dselect uses /var/lib/dpkg/available,
APT uses (iirc) /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin which is constructed from
the Packages files it downloads to /var/lib/apt/lists.

So, while APT and dselect can have different ideas about what is
available, they will always think alike with respect to what is
installed.

Doing a dselect-upgrade will cause APT to do whatever dselect has
flagged in /var/lib/dpkg/status instead of figuring out what
to download.

Loading the status file into a text editor for more info.


HTH


- Bruce