On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 08:19:58PM -0700, Daniel Burrows wrote: > On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 09:25:02AM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West <andrew@farwestbilliards.com> was heard to say: > > > > this bothers me, since I mostly use aptitude. When I need a build-dep > > or source, I'm concerned that later aptitude may wipe something > > inadvertantly. Do you know if there are plans to implement these > > commands into aptitude? Or will apt-get always remain, so that its not > > a problem? > > aptitude shouldn't wipe out packages installed with apt-get, period > full stop. you know, that wasn't fair of me. I was once concerned about that problem, but have subsequently learned that it really doesn't happen. So i apologise if that came across wrong. > > The thing that bothers me, sometimes, about build-dep is that I have no > way of deleting the build-dep once I don't need it. There would be real > value in adding this command to aptitude if there was a way to tag > packages installed by it for future removal. (one could also get crazy > and imagine putting arbitrary tags on packages) yeah, i see what you mean. Personally, if I install a build-dep, I want it to stick around and and stay in good shape like any other package. My hacking is done intermittently at best and having a build-dep go out of sync when I'm not looking would be frustrating. > > I don't see the point of duplicating the functionality of "source", > except that it means you can avoid running apt-get. hmmm... I'mnot sure I understand this. Why not have aptitude be a complete replacement for apt-get? I mean, if aptitude already replaces some sufficiently large portion of apt-get's functionality, why not take it the rest of the way so that aptitude users can stay with aptitude? Of course I ask this purely out of curiosity as I have zero time ATM to put into hacking on aptitude. :( one of the things that keeps recurring here is various discussions about aptitude and its supposed propensity for removing whole swaths of packages at inopportune moments. A lot of folks blame this on switching back and forth between aptitude and apt-get. Of course, you've said that this won't happen, and I believe you, but there is still this impression being perpetuated on this list. My thinking is that completing the duplication of functionality between apt-get and aptitude would eliminate the percieved problem. Of course that's not a very good reason to write code ;-P. > > So I guess the answer wrt plans is that I have vague and mushy plans > to implement build-dep, and no particular interest in implementing > source (there are many higher-priority items in the input queue). thanks for the update. We all love to hear about this stuff directly from time to time. thanks again for your work on debian too! its changed my life, frankly. A
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