Aptitude--any users!

[James Freer]

On 10 May 2011 12:49, S.Allen <marathon.durandal at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 09, 2011 at 10:48:10PM +0100, James Freer wrote:
>
>> 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
>
> Most of it's shite too. I've never heard any rumours that Debian is
> dropping aptitude. Also one _can_ use apt-get, aptitude & synpatic
> interchangeably -- I do this all the time. So most of what you've wrote
> in the foregoing is rubbish.
>

Thanks for your sharp unnecessary response!

I never claimed that debian was dropping aptitude. As for using it
interchangeably - congratulations with your success. From what i've
gathered over the last four years - each has their own app database so
changing from one to the other is strongly not recommended practice.
In Ubuntu there was a sync app... perhaps 8.04, 9.04 9.10 - but no
longer in 10.04 which is what i use. I didn't find any problems as i
said with apt and synaptic but look on the kubuntu forums - there are
many people there this past year who have had problems with aptitude
and synaptic.

I do know folk who are debian developers at a LUG although i haven't
been in contact this past year. They certainly didn't recommend
switching between package managers because of their different
databases.

Things may have changed now. What development has taken place with
aptitude i don't know as things there seem to be fairly quiet. You're
fortunate you haven't had any problems.

james