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Re: switching from apt-get to aptitude



Justin Guerin wrote:

On Wednesday 17 May 2006 23:51, mustard lee wrote:
Christopher Nelson wrote:
On Wed, May 17, 2006 at 02:59:26PM +0200, H. Wilmer wrote:
Florian Kulzer wrote:
[snip]
One thing thats always confused me with aptitude is how to 'unmark'
packages that I have accidently marked when uses the ncurses interface.
I have no trouble marking things and installing them, although, I
generally use the command line for this.  It usually when I have a lot
of upgrades and I'd like to mark them all, and then unmark the few that
I wannt to skip in upgrading, that I strike this problem of not knowing
how to umark marked packages.

Chris L.

From /usr/share/doc/aptitude/README:
________________________________________________________________________
|                    |Cancel any pending installation, upgrade, or     |
|Package->Keep (:)   |removal of the currently selected package, and   |
|                    |remove any hold that was set on the package.     |
|____________________|_________________________________________________|
|Package->Hold (=)   |Hold the currently selected package back.        |
|____________________|_________________________________________________|

If you previously put a hold on a package, : will remove it, but then again, if a package was on hold, choosing to upgrade them all should honor that.

Note that sometimes, pressing : won't seem to have any effect. This is because another package you're choosing to install / upgrade conflicts with that package, and you'll need to cancel the pending operation on that package as well. If the conflict resolution dialog doesn't come up, then press g once to review the pending operations. The package you're wanting to hold should be in the list of packages to be removed due to unsatisfied dependencies. If you highlight that package, the information pane will tell you that another package conflicts with it, so it's being removed. You can then search for that package, cancel its pending operation, and unless there's another dependency, your original package will now be properly held back from the upgrade.

After you change the preview (the tab you're in after you press g once), it will update, but I always use q to close that tab, then press g again to generate the preview again, so I'm sure no packages are listed in unexpected places.

Naturally, if you choose to review carefully what packages will be removed, upgraded, or installed before pressing g again, you'll never be surprised at what aptitude does. This is why I never understood how people can have aptitude remove packages without them expecting it.

Justin


Thanks for the input.

Chris L.



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