In <[🔎] 4B29BDBE.2090909@glimmer.adsl24.co.uk>, Nick Boyce wrote: >Joey Hess wrote: >> John Jason Jordan wrote: >>> But all the people in the know about Debian tell me I should be using >>> aptitude. I suppose I should switch, but that would require learning new >>> stuff. After a graduate degree my brain is full, so if I learn new stuff >>> I'll have to delete some of the old stuff. Bah. >> >> A garbage collection shortcut for your memory: All of the old reasons >> to use aptitude instead of apt-get for command-line package installation >> no longer apply; those improvements have been rolled back into apt-get. > >Wow, really ? > >The main advantage of aptitude over apt-get (IMO) used to be (sarge/etch >IIRC) that aptitude added extra info into the apt database flagging >packages that were only installed as a dependency of some other >explicitly installed package, so that a subsequent 'aptitude remove' of >the explicitly-installed top-level package would also remove the >dependency packages because apt now knew the packages were no longer >needed. It kept cruft out of the system. > >Has that specific functionality been rolled back into apt-get ? Yes. Although it is not entirely obvious. (apt-get autoremove) will remove packages that are marked automatically installed but do not have anything currently depending on them. This feature of both apt and aptitude has been confusing to many people -- particularly when they used the gnome or kde meta-package and them decided to uninstall some useless piece of "cruft" that was pulled in my the meta- package. I still prefer aptitude because I make use of the interactive resolver. When running a mixed system like mine, it can be a great aid. IMO, the aptitude interactive resolver is much better than the similar offerings on all other OSes I've tried, and reason enough for me to keep coming back to Debian. -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. bss@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/
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