Re: Using aptitude non-interactively

[Rich Rudnick <nickrud@verizon.net>]

On Tue, 2005-02-08 at 12:40 +0000, Ben A'Lee wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 17:39:00, Deepak, R. wrote:
> > I want to run aptitude in the background and install xserver-xfree86. So I
> > do:
> >     aptitude --assume-yes install xserver-xfree86
> > Then I <Ctrl-Z> and use "bg".
> > 
> > There are two problems:
> > 1. It continues printing the percentage completed.
> Try
>     aptitude --assume-yes install xserver-xfree86 >/dev/null 2>&1 &
> 
> That should send all output on stdin and stderr to /dev/null, and send it to the
> background.
> 
> > 2. How do I get it to ask the configuration questions at a later time?
>     dpkg-reconfigure <package-name>
> 
> You'll have to do that for each dependency individually, unfortunately.

Since I'm currently running a 3k modem line and do my updates while I'm
sleeping, my version of this is:

   aptitude --download-only install xserver-xfree86 >/dev/null 2>&1 &

This will download the proper packages into /var/cache/apt/archives
without installing them. Then, the next morning I'd run 

   aptitude install xserver-xfree86

This will perform the installation with the downloaded .debs while I'm
in the chair, and I get to see the configuration questions. (Due to a
bad experience in my first weeks of using debian [pam!], I never
install/upgrade testing/unstable packages except when I can supervise it
directly)