Packaging tools unification

[Colin Watson]

On Thu, May 19, 2005 at 11:08:37PM +0200, MadMan2k wrote:
> I just crashed my xserver by upgrading breezy and had to work with the 
> console instead of synaptic.
> And this is when I noticed how circumstantial it actually is to be 
> forced to use a bunch of tools to manage
> the packages;
> 
> You've got apt-cache for searching, apt-get for reprository install dpkg 
> for offline install, dpkg-reconfigure for customising aso.
> IMO it would be much more comfortable to have just apt for everything. 
> (including repro support for local packages)

The command-line tools follow (to some extent, at least) the Unix
philosophy of small tools that perform a single task well. If you want a
single tool for everything, you're always going to be more comfortable
with a full user interface, whether that be aptitude or synaptic or
whatever.

That said, 'wajig' tries to fulfil at least some of the goals you
mention.

> the syntax could look like that:
> apt search <package>
> apt install <package>
> apt reconfigure <package>
> 
> it should be quite easy to achieve this by simply adding some wrapping 
> layer - although a real unification would be
> more efficient.

It doesn't really make sense to unify all of these at a fundamental
level. They're built as communicating layers of software for a number of
reasons.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]