Bug#457995: new update/revision announcement pages confusing about aptitude/apt
Le December 27, 2007 03:47:40 pm Luk Claes, vous avez écrit :
> Philippe Cloutier wrote:
> > Le December 27, 2007 03:26:11 pm Luk Claes, vous avez écrit :
> >> Philippe Cloutier wrote:
> >>> Le December 27, 2007 03:12:22 pm Jose Luis Rivas Contreras, vous avez
> >
> > écrit :
> >>>> Philippe Cloutier wrote:
> >>>>> Package: www.debian.org
> >>>>> Severity: minor
> >>>>>
> >>>>> As its predecessor, http://www.us.debian.org/News/2007/20071227
> >>>>> contains
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Upgrading to this revision online is usually done by pointing the
> >>>>> aptitude (or apt) package tool (see the sources.list(5) manual page)
> >>>>> to one of Debian's many FTP or HTTP mirrors.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> This can confuse readers about what apt and aptitude are, suggesting
> >>>>> that one can use one or the other. This should probably read "by
> >>>>> pointing the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) (see the sources.list(5)
> >>>>> manual page) to [...]".
> >>>>
> >>>> You can use one or the other, depending on which one you prefer to
> >>>> use.
> >>>
> >>> Actually, you have to use APT, since aptitude uses APT. The problem is
> >>> precisely that the announcement suggests that aptitude does not use
> >>> APT, which is already a common misconception.
> >>
> >> No, aptitude uses libapt... For an enduser he can choose whatever
> >> package manager to use, though we recommend aptitude (or apt).
> >
> > I guess I have not been clear enough about the problem.
> > The announcement says this:
> > "You can use A or B."
> > B being a library used by A, users have to use B anyway, the only choice
> > is to use A or not. Actually, the choice is which APT front-end to use.
> >
> > It could also be changed to "pointing your favorite package manager (such
> > as aptitude and Synaptic) to [...]" though in reality, you're pointing
> > APT to a source, and you're only pointing your package manager to a
> > source indirectly.
> >
> > The current sentence is a bit like saying that you can use Debian or
> > Linux to replace Windows.
>
> No, it's not, apt is a package manager, it's libapt that is a library.
Quoting English Wikipedia:
> APT is a C++ library of functions (known as libapt) which are used by
> front-end programs for dealing with packages [...]
As you can see, APT can be considered as libapt. apt can also be considered as
the apt package, but it still contains libapt, so apt either is or contains
libapt. Therefore, suggesting that one can use aptitude without using apt is
misleading.
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