Aptitude--any users!

[James Freer]

On 3 May 2011 22:19, Chris Jones <christopher.rob.jones at cern.ch> wrote:
>
>> Exactly. Aptitude and apt-get do _not_ provide more or less the same
>> basic functionality. Aptitude is much better is every respect (error
>> handling, dependency resolution, logging, downgrading). That is
>> exactly my argument.
>
> Still, thats just a matter of opinion. I personally have never found anything I need to do I cannot with apt-get. I haven't really tried aptitude so cannot comment how much better it might be.
>
> There must be some reason why apt-get is favoured by default over aptitude. Most things like this aren't done for totally random reasons.
>
> cheers Chris

After posting on here i read a long thread on aptitude on a forum
[which i can't now find!]. I did some experimentation and the only
conclusions i can draw are the following

a] aptitude is great and more advanced in some respects but DOES NEED
to be used as the only package manager for installation and removal.
For the last couple of years i've used apt-get (set up in aliases to
make life easy), installed through the software centre, synaptic or
apt-get - but always used apt-get autoremove for removal and have to
say that i didn't have any orphan packages... checked with gtkorphan.

b] it would appear that apt-get development is being pursued more
actively as it is the quoted one in more cases. This is most likely
the reason for it being shipped on CDs.

c] i've read a number of threads saying that aptitude is TOO clever by
half. With a lot of updating and perhaps one update or install on
apt-get or synaptic and a remove in aptitude can lead to undesirable
results.

I liked aptitude as 'all is in one place' but its sophistication can
lead to problems which is why i think less folk use it (as well as b])
and hence it being dropped in debian. My humble twopence worth.

james