Re: apt-get vs. aptitude
On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 12:54 PM, Dmitrii Kashin <freehck@freehck.ru> wrote:
> Tom H <tomh0665@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 1:11 PM, Dmitrii Kashin <freehck@freehck.ru> wrote:
>>> Florian Lindner <mailinglists@xgm.de> writes:
>>>>
>>>> What is the prefered tool for installing on the CLI? apt-get or
>>>> aptitude? Last time I read about it, it was aptitude, due to better
>>>> dependency checking. What is the current state? apt-get or aptitude?
>>>> Does it matter? What about using both?
>>>
>>> I should notice that you cannot compare apt-get and aptitude. But you
>>> can do it for aptitude and APT utilities.
>>>
>>> I find aptitude somtimes inadequate, and therefore dangerous in some
>>> cases. I met situations when aptitude completly broke functioning of
>>> APT. APT utilities in their turn are simpler, and they are more
>>> preferred to manage packages.
>>>
>>> But although aptitude can break APT, APT could not break aptitude's
>>> working, so you always can use it in order to use its searching
>>> abilities. I do so.
>>
>> Have you filed a bug report about aptitude breaking apt (whatever that
>> means!) or is this just FUD?
>
> No, I have not. Because it is normal aptitude's behaviour.
> I have just written about this case in debian-russian list, but can not
> find now the original text, so I am writing new one.
>
> It was a cognitive case. I had set priorities for dbus to negative ones
> using pinning. Then I tried to install some package which needed dbus
> with apt-get and aptitude; and then I compared behavior of theese
> utilities.
>
> As it was impossible to resolve dependencies for this package due to
> pinning, apt-get printed error message and shut down. And in my opinion
> it was a right decision.
>
> But aptitude in its turn did not bahave the same way. What did it do?
> It suggested to me several "solutions". They were:
>
> 1) Install this package ignoring dependency.
>
> As it was a hard dependency, program could not work without it. And if
> you choose this variant, unresolved dependencies appears in the system,
> so you would not be able to use apt-get to manage packages anymore.
>
> And it is the case you asked about.
>
> 2) Install dbus, forgot about pinning.
>
> This one just shocked me.
>
> 3) ...
>
> There was a lot of fun "solutions" of the problem. But as I said, I can
> not find original post, and can not remember more examples.
>
> It's enough I think.
You start out by replying that this isn't a bug but normal for aptitude!
And I agree.
Aptitude gives you the option to to install a piece of software
without a hard dependency (and then dealing with the consequences) or
of overriding a previous choice of software installation.
It gives you a choice! It doesn't install packages that breaks your
installation or conflicts with your requirements without your consent!
Not only is aptitude not broken but it doesn't break apt since you can
still use apt-get/aptitude to install other packages.
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