Bug#310975: apt-get manual, usage of special signs (i.e. for install) is hard to find
Package: apt
Version: 0.5.28.6
Severity: wishlist
I was recently told about the feature to append a minus sign (-) to a
package name when apt-get install:ing, to have the package removed.
Despite having read (or skimmed) the man page for apt-get quite a few
times over the years, I did not know about this. Probably because it
is not very visible to the eye. Thus, I marked the signs that are
mentioned in the man file, as is done with the minus above.
If you like this, a patch is included (for the English document).
diff -ur doc.orig/apt-get.8.xml doc/apt-get.8.xml
--- doc.orig/apt-get.8.xml 2005-01-10 23:02:42.000000000 +0100
+++ doc/apt-get.8.xml 2005-05-27 13:28:04.000000000 +0200
@@ -115,17 +115,17 @@
argument provided, not <literal>libc6_1.9.6-2.deb</literal>) All packages required
by the package(s) specified for installation will also be retrieved and
installed. The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename> file is used to locate
- the desired packages. If a hyphen is appended to the package name (with
+ the desired packages. If a hyphen (-) is appended to the package name (with
no intervening space), the identified package will be removed if it is
- installed. Similarly a plus sign can be used to designate a package to
+ installed. Similarly a plus sign (+) can be used to designate a package to
install. These latter features may be used to override decisions made by
apt-get's conflict resolution system.</para>
- <para>A specific version of a package can be selected for installation by
- following the package name with an equals and the version of the package
- to select. This will cause that version to be located and selected for
- install. Alternatively a specific distribution can be selected by
- following the package name with a slash and the version of the
+ <para>A specific version of a package can be selected for installation by
+ following the package name with an equals sign (=) and the version of the
+ package to select. This will cause that version to be located and selected
+ for install. Alternatively a specific distribution can be selected by
+ following the package name with a slash (/) and the version of the
distribution or the Archive name (stable, testing, unstable).</para>
<para>Both of the version selection mechanisms can downgrade packages and must
@@ -146,7 +146,7 @@
<varlistentry><term>remove</term>
<listitem><para><literal>remove</literal> is identical to <literal>install</literal> except that packages are
- removed instead of installed. If a plus sign is appended to the package
+ removed instead of installed. If a plus sign (+) is appended to the package
name (with no intervening space), the identified package will be
installed instead of removed.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
@@ -163,10 +163,10 @@
compiled to a binary .deb using dpkg-buildpackage, if --download-only is
specified then the source package will not be unpacked.</para>
- <para>A specific source version can be retrieved by postfixing the source name
- with an equals and then the version to fetch, similar to the mechanism
- used for the package files. This enables exact matching of the source
- package name and version, implicitly enabling the
+ <para>A specific source version can be retrieved by postfixing the source
+ name with an equals sign (=) and then the version to fetch, similar to the
+ mechanism used for the package files. This enables exact matching of the
+ source package name and version, implicitly enabling the
<literal>APT::Get::Only-Source</literal> option.</para>
<para>Note that source packages are not tracked like binary packages, they
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