Manual for apt

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sat, 3 Sep 2016 09:17:38 +0100, Colin Law wrote:
>On 3 September 2016 at 09:01, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>> Packages installed by either apt "full-upgrade" or "install", e.g.
>>
>>   # apt -o APT::Color="0" full-upgrade
>>   # apt install alpine-pico
>>
>> are not stored in /var/cache/apt/archives/.
>> As wanted apt-get "dist-upgrade" and "install" stores the packages in
>> the cache. 
>
>The install history is in /var/log/apt/history.log, but is that not
>also the case for apt-get?

Yes, but the Ubuntu 16.04 version of apt does not save the installed
packages in _cache_.

>I agree with your point that documentation for apt is lacking.  For
>example man apt does not even show autoremove as an option.

It is mentioned by the Ubuntu 16.04 version of apt:



[weremouse at moonstudio ~]$ lsb_release -r; man apt | grep autoremove
Release:	16.04
       autoremove (apt-get(8))
           autoremove is used to remove packages that were automatically
                      installed to satisfy dependencies for other
[weremouse at moonstudio ~]$ apt --help | grep autoremove 
  autoremove - Remove automatically all unused packages



Some options are hinted by the synopsis:



[weremouse at moonstudio ~]$ man apt | grep SYNOPSIS -A4
SYNOPSIS
       apt [-h] [-o=config_string] [-c=config_file] [-t=target_release]
       [-a=architecture] {list | search | show | update | install pkg
       [{=pkg_version_number | /target_release}]...  | remove pkg...  |
       upgrade | full-upgrade | edit-sources | {-v | --version} | {-h |
       --help}}


It's intended to keep the man page brief:

[weremouse at moonstudio ~]$ man apt | grep "most used" -A1
       Much like apt itself, its manpage is intended as an end user
interface and as such only mentions the most used commands and options
partly to not duplicate information in multiple places and partly to
avoid overwhelming


Regards,
Ralf