On Sun, 2007-08-19 at 14:10 -0400, Mark Neidorff wrote:
> Hi all,

Hi you

> More generally, is there a document/web page that explains what are the
> preferred packages and what is the "Debian Way" of doing things.

In _my_ opinion:
Installing and using a distribution implies using its package manager.
Or, if you dont want that, install LFS.
Packaging is one of the strength of Linux distributions over than other
OS.
But that's my personnal opinion.


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Hi Mumia,

On 8/19/07, Mumia W.. <paduille.4061.mumia.w+nospam@earthlink.net> wrote:

* However, I never do anything at the command line that hasn't been
> verified as safe. I always use the curses interface to find out what is
> going to happen before I enter a command at the command line.


Well, that's a valuable advise that I'll keep in mind.


Greetings, Manon.

Hi Douglas,

On 8/19/07, Douglas A. Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca> wrote:

If you mix with apt-get ...
>
> ... This leads to the cruft buildup that
> aptitude is suposed to you prevent.


I remember a thread some time ago that just pointed out not to mix apt-get
with aptitude.


The other problem is this. Install package A. Aptitude brings in
> package B to meet a dependancy. Over time, you get attached to package
> B in its own right. Later, either package A changes and doesn't need B
> or you remove A. If you haven't told aptitude that you want to keep B,
> it will go ahead and remove it too.
>
> In interactive mode, you get a detailed preview (with reasons) of what
> aptitude wants to do. You can then edit that preview to fine-tune it
> before telling aptitude to go ahead. It really tries to protect you
> from yourself without preventing you from shooting yourself in the foot
> if that is really what you want to do.



Yeah, I had this once - don't know anymore which package - but from the
command line aptitude wanted to remove a lot that I wanted to keep. So I
had to enter interactive mode and put that stuff on hold.

Greetings, Manon.

On Aug 19, 2007, at 1:08 PM, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> There were
> frequent posts to the list like "Aptitude wants to remove 150
> packages!!!". They were using the CLI and didn't get the detailed
> explanation from aptitude that they would from the curses interface.

Dumb question: Is there a way to back out of an aptitude transaction,
if you get some hairy list of dependencies you don't want to deal
with? I've gone through all the menus and if it's there, I'm looking
past it. I've successfully done it by manually adjusting each item
in the list, but that's a serious pain.




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On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 10:40:43AM -0700, David Brodbeck wrote:
>
> On Aug 19, 2007, at 1:08 PM, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
>> There were
>> frequent posts to the list like "Aptitude wants to remove 150
>> packages!!!". They were using the CLI and didn't get the detailed
>> explanation from aptitude that they would from the curses interface.
>
> Dumb question: Is there a way to back out of an aptitude transaction, if
> you get some hairy list of dependencies you don't want to deal with? I've
> gone through all the menus and if it's there, I'm looking past it. I've
> successfully done it by manually adjusting each item in the list, but
> that's a serious pain.

There's "Undo" (Ctrl-U) before pressing g and "Cancel Pending Actions"
(in menu "Actions") that can be used after the first g.

Is this what you need?

Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

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On Sun, Aug 19, 2007 at 03:31:19PM -0500, Mumia W.. wrote:

> I'm also curious about what problems other people are having with
> aptitude.

aptitude is slow on simple searches (so I use apt-cache for those), but
the patterns are much more powerful.

> --------------
> * However, I never do anything at the command line that hasn't been
> verified as safe. I always use the curses interface to find out what is
> going to happen before I enter a command at the command line.

Do you mean you back out and start again using the commandline. But you
are just a 'g' away from happiness!

Did you try the -s (simulate) option?

Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

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On Aug 20, 2007, at 12:05 PM, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> There's "Undo" (Ctrl-U) before pressing g and "Cancel Pending Actions"
> (in menu "Actions") that can be used after the first g.
>
> Is this what you need?

It seems like I tried 'Cancel Pending Actions' once and it didn't
seem to do anything, but maybe I'm remembering wrong.




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Mark Neidorff wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Recently I've set up a Debian Etch box which I'm nearly ready to bring up full
> time (currently using a different distribution...been a linux user for over
> 10 years).
>
> Here's an example of what this message is about:
> I've been reading the debian-user list for a bit, and I've noticed that
> suggestions given are to use the apt-* suite or aptitude to managing
> packages. While setting things up (and installing packages) I came across
> synaptic in the KDE menus. Tried it, and liked using it. So now I'm
> wondering according to Debian Wisdom (no disrespect intended to anyonne)
> which is the preferred way of installing software?
>
> More generally, is there a document/web page that explains what are the
> preferred packages and what is the "Debian Way" of doing things.
>

I use synaptic almost all the time on Sid. It's a desktop machine,
so I have a desktop, and most of the time it's OK. Yes, for the same
reason explained elsewhere, sometimes it wants to remove half the
machine, but it's easy enough to find the culprit and leave it for a
while. A few days later, all will be well. Sometimes, even updating
blocks of things in a particular order sorts that out.

But every now and then, being Sid, it needs the Big Hammer. Something
gets stuck, even apt-get won't fix it, and some brutal surgery with
dpkg --force-xxx on the CLI is necessary. Don't forget dpkg.


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On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 10:20:51AM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote:

> I ditched aptitude a couple of years ago in favour of wajig. I'm willing
> to believe that most or even all of the problems I had with aptitude
> were my own fault, but wajig is brilliant IMO and I don't find a need
> for anything else.
>

But look at all the cruft that drags in. It includes an optional GUI
that drags in gnome, for example. Also, it is only a front-end to the
regular apt commands so it doesn't get the extra complex dependancy
handling of aptitude.

Doug.


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On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 01:04:15PM +0200, Mihamina (R12y) Rakotomandimby wrote:

> In _my_ opinion:
> Installing and using a distribution implies using its package manager.
> Or, if you dont want that, install LFS.
> Packaging is one of the strength of Linux distributions over than other
> OS.
> But that's my personnal opinion.

The BSDs have pkg_add et. al. that fuction like apt-get et.al. I
haven't seen anything like aptitude's interactive. Of course the
details differ, but they do have commands that will either download and
install a pre-compiled binary (some call it a package, others a port) or
will download the sources, compile it, and install it with just the one
command.

Doug.


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On 20 Aug 2007, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 10:20:51AM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote:
>
> > I ditched aptitude a couple of years ago in favour of wajig. I'm willing
> > to believe that most or even all of the problems I had with aptitude
> > were my own fault, but wajig is brilliant IMO and I don't find a need
> > for anything else.
> >
>
> But look at all the cruft that drags in. It includes an optional GUI
> that drags in gnome, for example. Also, it is only a front-end to the
> regular apt commands so it doesn't get the extra complex dependancy
> handling of aptitude.
>
> Doug.

I don't use the GUI, just the CLI. I'm not sure what the "extra complex
dependency handling" is; perhaps it's this that causes a lot of the
problems that people complain of.

--
Anthony Campbell - ac@acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Linux Gnu-Debian
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews,
on-line books and sceptical articles)


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Mark Neidorff wrote:

> Here's an example of what this message is about:
> I've been reading the debian-user list for a bit, and I've noticed that
> suggestions given are to use the apt-* suite or aptitude to managing
> packages. While setting things up (and installing packages) I came across
> synaptic in the KDE menus. Tried it, and liked using it. So now I'm
> wondering according to Debian Wisdom (no disrespect intended to anyonne)
> which is the preferred way of installing software?
>

FWIW, I still use apt-get instead of aptitude on my Sid machine. With recent
apt versions in sid, I don't think there is a difference between apt-get
and aptitude in terms of how they resolve dependencies (someone please
correct me if I am wrong). apt-get also has autoremove option which can
automatically removes the unused packages.

hth
raju

--
Kamaraju S Kusumanchi
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/
http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/


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On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:00:22 -0800
Ken Irving <fnkci@uaf.edu> wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 19, 2007 at 03:31:19PM -0500, Mumia W.. wrote:

[snip]

> > I only use apt-get when I need to install from the source (which aptitude
> > cannot do).
>
> I wonder why that is; the source packages are independent of binary ones.

As raju and others have pointed out on the list, aptitude apparently
has no equivalent to apt-get's 'source' and 'build-dep' commands.

[snip]

> Ken
>
> --
> Ken Irving, fnkci+debianuser@uaf.edu

Celejar
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On Tue, Aug 21, 2007 at 10:56:55AM -0400, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:

> FWIW, I still use apt-get instead of aptitude on my Sid machine. With recent
> apt versions in sid, I don't think there is a difference between apt-get
> and aptitude in terms of how they resolve dependencies (someone please
> correct me if I am wrong). apt-get also has autoremove option which can
> automatically removes the unused packages.

As far as I recall from the announcement about the autoremove option, it
was stated that the developers of apt and aptitude were working together
to move the dependency handling in apt. Don't know the status of this
though.

Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

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