Re: Maze of Twisty Turny Little Package Managers

["s. keeling" <keeling@spots.ab.ca>]

John Hasler <jhasler@debian.org>:
> > It appears that there are a lot of tools for managing packages and
> > dependencies on debian - dpkg, apt-get, aptitude, synaptic, ????.
> 
>  There is only one package manager in Debian: Dpkg.  Apt is a
>  dependency-resolving library that runs on top of Dpkg.  Apt-get, Aptitude,
>  and Synaptic are front-ends for Apt.
> 
> > To what extent do these tools understand the same data, i.e. to what
> > extent can one mix and match between them?
> 
>  They all manipulate the same database through Dpkg.  Some do additional
>  stuff such as automatically installing recommended packages and tracking
>  which packages have been installed as dependencies vs. being requested
>  directly by the administrator.

And the downside is, you might say:

    apt-get remove $SOME_GNOME_PROGRAM

and it will also remove Gnome (if you let it); Ditto KDE.  aptitude is
more likely to suggest this than is apt-get.

And the first time, you ought to do:

    apt-get update && apt-get install aptitude && aptitude update && \
      aptitude upgrade

then aptitude ... from then on.  So they say.

BTW, I don't use either KDE or Gnome for my DE.  I do use some of
their apps.


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