Re: fetching older packages?
On (30/09/03 20:56), Joey Hess wrote:
> I used dselect for 6 years or so. I have even fixed some of its bugs and
> added things like configurable colors to it. Eventually though, it just
> comes time to move on to the next better thing. Aptitude has many
> features dselect lacks. For me the killer feature was tracking of
> automatically removed packages, so old libraries don't pile up.
>
> I've attached my aptitude tips document. While it is mostly aimed at
> apt-get users, most of the points apply to dselect users too.
>
> > Also, there are no new packages available that I don't know about yet
> > ... will aptitude tell me about them in a really obvious way, as dselect
> > does by putting them right up top? If I look at them in aptitude, will
> > they still show up as new in dselect, or will they be marked as seen?
>
> They use different lists of what's new, one does not effect the other.
>
> Aptitude displays new pacages in a "New packages" section which behaves
> much like dselect's, except it does not clear it until you press the 'c'
> key. This is useful, I remember accidentially exiting dselect and losing
> new packages I had not yet reviewed. With aptitude I can put off looking
> at new packages until I feel like it.
>
> --
> see shy jo
> Seven reasons why you should be using aptitude instead of apt-get.
>
> 1. aptitude can look just like apt-get
>
> If you run 'aptitude update' or 'aptitude upgrade' or 'aptitude
> install', it looks and works just like apt-get, with a few enhancements.
> So there is no learning curve.
>
> 2. aptitude tracks automatically installed packages
>
> Stop worrying about pruning unused libraries and support packages from
> your system. If you use aptitude to install everything, it will keep
> track of what packages are pulled in by dependencies alone, and remove
> those packages when they are no longer needed.
>
> 3. aptitude sanely handles recommends
>
> A long-standing failure of apt-get has been its lack of support for
> the Recommends relationship. Which is a problem because many packages
> in Debian rely on Recommends to pull in software that the average user
> generally uses with the package. This is a not uncommon cause of
> trouble, even though apt-get recently became able to at least mention
> recommended packages, it's easy to miss its warnings.
>
> Aptitude supports Recommends by default, and can be confgigured to
> support Suggests too. It even supports installing recommended packages
> when used in command-line mode.
>
> 4. use aptitude as a normal user and avoid hosing your system
>
> Maybe you didn't know that you can run aptitude in gui mode as a regular
> user. Make any changes you'd like to try out. If you get into a real
> mess, you can hit 'q' and exit, your changes will not be saved.
> (aptitude also lets you use ctrl-u to undo changes). Since it's running
> as a normal user, you cannot hose your system until you tell aptitude to
> do something, at which point it will prompt you for your root password.
>
> 5. aptitude has a powerful UI and searching capabilities
>
> Between aptitude's categorical browser and its great support for
> mutt-style filtering and searching of packages by name, description,
> maintainer, dependencies, etc, you should be able to find packages
> faster than ever before using aptitude.
>
> 6. aptitude makes it easy to keep track of obsolete software
>
> If Debian stops distributing a package, apt will leave it on your system
> indefinitly, with no warnings, and no upgrades. Aptitude lists such
> packages in its "Obsolete and Locally Created Packages" section, so you
> can be informed of the problem and do something about it.
>
> 7. aptitude has an interface to the Debian task system
>
> Aptitude lets you use Debian's task system as it was designed to be
> used. You can browse the available tasks, select a task for install, and
> then dig into it and de-select parts of the task that you don't want.
> apt-get has no support for tasks, and aptitude is better even than
> special purpose tools like tasksel.
Thanks Joey
This is pretty compelling stuff ;) Having mainly used dselect, I think
I really need to try aptitude.
Regards
Clive
--
http://www.clivemenzies.co.uk
strategies for business
Reply to: