[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: finally got lenny installed



On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 11:05:29PM +0000, Robin <rc.rattusrattus@googlemail.com> was heard to say:
> On 27/02/2008, Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org> wrote:
> >   If you don't care about this feature, you can turn it off under
> > Options/Dependency Handling by disabling "Remove unused packages
> > automatically", or add "Aptitude::Delete-Unused false;" to
> > /etc/apt/apt.conf.
> >
> I know why it does it, what I'm saying is the default behaviour is wrong. A
> user new to debian/aptitude is unlikely  to understand that it is a
> configuration option that needs to be turned off, whereas a more
> experienced/technical user is more likely to have the knowledge to turn the
> option on.

  For every user who's complained about it there are, by my estimation,
two or three who have thanked me explicitly for adding this feature to
aptitude.  I occasionally even get emails from people who say they use
aptitude over other package managers because of this feature, despite the
fact that the version of Debian they're running includes my implementation
of autoremoval in apt-get!  My best guess is that because it's disabled
by default in apt-get, people don't realize that it's supported over
there too; even for technical users, non-default options tend to be
invisible.


  The nature of the problem space of package management is that every
decision the program makes or doesn't make will upset some users,
because users have conflicting desires about what to do.  This doesn't
just apply to autoremoval; it also applies to, e.g., decisions about
how to carry out upgrades or how to resolve dependency problems.  The
solution aptitude adopts is to be very up-front about what it's going
to do and to make it dead simple to revert or override any decisions you
don't like.

  And quite honestly, how many new users are going to want to use a
terminal/command-line based package manager anyway?  They'd be better
off with synaptic no matter how much I tweaked aptitude to make them
happy.  I'd much rather focus my effort on making the program useful
for people who will actually use it.

  Daniel


Reply to: