Re: How do you get aptitude to do what you want?
lee <lee@yun.yagibdah.de>:
>
> I'm trying to upgrade my testing installation, but aptitude keeps yelp
> in its current state, claiming that upgrading yelp would break a
> dependency with gman. But gman is not even installed.
>
> When I mark yelp as upgradeable, it says that it would break
> scrollkeeper. So I tell it to purge scrollkeeper, but it again says it
> breaks some dependencies:
> [snip]
> Now I don't need those packages, but when I mark them to be purged and
> press g, aptitude says it wants to install rarian-compat and to keep
> above packages, except for synaptic, at their current state. Now when
> looking at the list what it is going to do, it doesn't say it will
> keep these packages in their current states. Instead, it will remove
> scrollkeeper, ugrade 66 packages (including yelp) and install 3 new
> ones to satisfy dependencies.
>
> Why is this so confusing? Why does it say it will keep some packages
> in their states but then doesn't say that it will do that? It doesn't
> mention the packages it said to keep in their states at all now.
>
> Aptitude always acts so weird :( What's the problem with it? Dselect
> always just did what I wanted it to do.
I've always suspected that apt/aptitude's not at fault. I seldom run
into this stuff, I suspect, by simply eschewing Gnome/KDE/CUPS/...
That's where the complexity comes in. Even xfce displays this
fragility in recent tests. I almost called one of my users a liar the
other day when I couldn't believe what he was telling me. Sure
enough, he was right (no "Username:" or "Password:" displayed in the
*DM login prompt).
I do a minimal install, then drag in only the stuff I want (fluxbox,
emacs, mutt, slrn, bogofilter, afio, ...). It takes some time the
first time, but take notes and it's faster than the automated way
subsequently.
--
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(*) http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html Linux Counter #80292
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