Re: aptitude --mind-your-own-business option?
On Thu, Dec 07, 2006 at 01:59:01PM +0000, Chris Lale wrote:
> Florian Kulzer wrote:
> >[...]
> >
> >I have tried to come up with possible reasons why some people have such
> >bad experiences when they try aptitude. Here is my "traps and pitfalls
> >of aptitude" list:
> >
> >1) Aptitude remembers intended actions, even if you change the package
> > states and/or configuration settings which prompted this behavior.
> > When in doubt, run "aptitude keep-all".
> >
> >2) Aptitude tries to react immediately to changes in package states,
> > including the "automatically installed" flag. If you want to run
> > several successive (un)markauto commands to change/fix your system
> > then you have to use "--schedule-only" to keep aptitude from doing
> > something unintended halfway through the operation and "keep-all"
> > afterwards. Another helpful stop-gap measure in such cases is
> > -o aptitude::Keep-Unused-Pattern='~T'
> >
> >3) The location of aptitude's configuration file depends on whether it
> > is run as root or with "sudo" (unless you change your sudo set_home
> > configuration). This can lead to inconsistent behavior. "sudo -H"
> > takes care of this.
> >
> >4) If aptitude runs into problems when trying to upgrade packages (e.g.
> > because the updated versions of some dependencies are still missing)
> > it will normally propose the least harmful action first (e.g. keeping
> > a few packages at their presently installed version). However, if you
> > run another upgrade command after the harmless actions have been
> > carried out, then aptitude will assume that you want it to be more
> > aggressive. "keep-all" helps again, as well as CTRL + U or "Cancel
> > Pending Actions" in interactive mode.
> >
> >
> This is a great list, Florian! I think that it should be included in the
> Debian Reference.
>
> I normally run "aptitude unmarkauto --schedule-only '~i'" before using
> Aptitude after using Synaptic. Is it still necessary to run "aptitude
> keep-all" too (point 2)?
>
Why not submit a bug report, severity wishlist, to the debian-reference
package?
Doug.
Reply to: