Re: aptitude --mind-your-own-business option?
On Sat, Dec 02, 2006 at 01:00:14PM +0100, Florian Kulzer wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 02, 2006 at 01:39:04 -0900, Ken Irving wrote:
> > I'll probably just go back to using apt-get, and probably everything
> > will be fine until the next time I decide to try aptitude. Is there a
> > compelling reason to bother?
>
> I like the "forbid-version" functionality (I run Sid and it is so much
> more convenient than having to remember to remove apt pins or dpkg
> holds), the interactive interface, the powerful search patterns, the
> log, the convenient way to look at changelogs before downloading, and
> the fact that I can fine-tune how recommendations are treated for
> automatic (un)installing. I also have observed aptitude acting much
> smarter in conflict resolution, for example if package "foo" gets split
> into "foo" and "foo-data" in an upgrade. With apt-get this often
> resulted in a "chicken-and-egg" problem since the new "foo-data" had
> overlapping files with the old "foo" package and "foo" could not be
> upgraded directly because the new "foo" depended on "foo-data". In such
> situations I often had to break the tie manually, for example by
> temporarily uninstalling "foo", with "--force" if necessary. Aptitude
> solves this type of problem without user intervention by going some
> clever two-step route.
>
> (Disclaimer: I have not used apt-get in a long time; it might have
> learned some new tricks since I switched to aptitude.)
Nice list, but I try not to do anything fancy like pinning or forcing or
holding, and apt-get has always seemed to work well enough. Logging is
good, but I think that was just added to apt-get. The chicken and egg
problem during major upgrades may/seems to be a reason, but apt-get has
handled those well enough in my experience, maybe with a manual two-step.
I have the impression that I can use aptitude search if it's better, but
still use apt-get to install and upgrade without conflict.
--
Ken Irving, fnkci@uaf.edu
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