Re: Thanks for aptitude...

[marc <gmane@auxbuss.com>]

Joey Hess said...
> Adam Hardy wrote:
> > Do apt/dselect and aptitude share the same database as far as the 
> > currently installed modules are concerned, ignoring whether the packages 
> > were installed by apt or by aptitude?
> 
> "apt/dpkg/aptitude use different databases" is a frequent statetement on
> this mailing list. It's largely a myth.
> 
> dpkg is the underlying layer which is the only thing in Debian that
> installs or removes package, and its database about what is installed is
> used by all tools. /var/lib/dpkg/status is used by all package
> management tools in Debian to keep track of what is installed. dpkg is
> the only program that I know of that modifies this file (aside from
> dselect possibly, but that's dead), although some others do read it.
> 
> apt uses /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin (and srcpkgcache.bin) to store some
> additional information beyond what is in dpkg's status file, but this is
> notably a _cache_; try deleting the file and watch apt-get update
> recreate it from the Release and Packages files it downloads, and from
> /var/lib/dpkg/status, with no data loss. It is only used to speed up
> apt's access to the information and does not contain any unique data of
> its own.
> 
> aptitude is just a frontend to apt and uses the same pkgcache file in
> the same way. It also uses /var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates for storing a few
> pieces of information that dpkg's status file does not support. This
> includes information about whether a package was manually selected or
> was installed to satisfy a dependency. IMHO there's no reason why this
> information couldn't be rolled back into /var/lib/dpkg/status for use by
> other tools eventually. It also includes a way to store state about a
> package being held at a particulr version, something that is supported
> to a lesser extent by the dpkg status file.
> 
> synaptic, another frontend to apt, uses the same database files as apt
> and no others AFAIK.
> 
> All four tools have different approaches for resolving complex
> dependency/conflict sutuations, which are much more likely to lead to
> differences in behavior.

Thanks a lot for that. Someone lob it in the wiki.

-- 
Best,
Marc