Re: aptitude vs. apt-get

From: Eddy (provisoire.jan2005_at_belgacom.net)
Date: 02/05/05

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    Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 01:39:02 +0100
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

    Steve Lamb a écrit le 04/02/05 23:50 :
    > nori heikkinen wrote:
    >
    >> on Thu, 03 Feb 2005 02:41:42PM -0600, Ron Johnson insinuated:
    >>
    >>> Some of us dislike aptitude because it insists on removing packages
    >>> for seemingly random reasons.

    My system (sarge) is updated regularly.
    Right now, apt-get -s upgrade shows nothing to install and 2 packages
    kept back.
    apt-get -s dist-upgrade explains why : 2 additionnal packages should be
    installed to fulfill the (new) dependencies of those 2 kept back packages.

    aptitude -s dist-upgrade wants to install 25 new packages and remove 37
    others !

    > Since aptitude does tell you exactly why it is removing packages if
    > the user cannot take in that information it is PEBKAC.

    The OP said he didn't like aptitude's behaviour.
    Why do *you* have a problem with that ? You must have one though because
    I can't see why you would start PEBKACking him otherwise.

    Seriously, I admit there probably is an explanation to the aptitude
    behaviour. I haven't got a problem with that but I just don't see why I
    should bother trying to understand aptitude when apt-get does the job I
    want.

    As for your assertion that "aptitude does tell you exactly why it is
    removing packages", well it simply is not true. At least not always. And
    when it does it's not always correct.
    (Again aptitude's doc probably provides explanations but don't pretend
    that those informations are provided by aptitude itself.)

    Example 1.

    I start aptitude and type "g" to see what it plans to do.

    It wants to remove vim as an "unused" package. As far as unused packages
    go, I use this one everyday. Well let's read further... "It was
    installed automatically". Well that's a lie : I installed it on pupose
    but I didn't do it with aptitude. I can accept this kind of behaviour
    but I will certainly not consider the message displayed as correct.

    Example 2

    It will remove libgnutls11-dev because it has 4 missing dependencies.
    Well apt-get installing those show that they are installed with the
    latest versions; apt-get install libgnutls11-dev tells the same.

    Example 3

    It will install festival. Why ? It sure doesn't say and I really don't
    need it. The same goes for a lot of other packages.
    I am not saying there is no reason to do it (and it is probably due to
    the options regarding dependencies) but do not tell me that aptitude
    gives the reason for its actions.

    Example 4

    It wants to remove alsa, anacron and lots of other basic stuff and once
    again does not provide any reason.

    >
    >> ... or installing huge numbers of packages on a whim
    >
    >
    > Then turn off installing recommends by default. Again, if a user
    > doesn't even give a quick glance to the options aptitude has then it is
    > PEBKAC.

    OK. I did that. F10 -> Options -> Gestion des dépendances where I
    deselected everything : no automatic resolution of dependencies, no
    correction of broken packages, no recommended packages and no
    suppression of unused packages.

    Unfortunately, it still insists on doing the actions mentioned above.
    Closing aptitude and starting it again doesn't change anything but using
    the command line doesn't give the same result as before. He now only
    wants to remove 1 package and install 7 new ones (and update the 2 that
    were kept back).

    Well, as I said, I won't bother with aptitude as long as apt-get does
    the job. Yet I'd be curious to understand why the options chosen in the
    UI do not have any influence in the UI itself but do on the command
    line. Weird. 

    -- 
Eddy
          "La notion de passoire est indépendante de la notion de trou."
		                                 Les Shadoks
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