Manual for apt

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sat, 3 Sep 2016 11:27:47 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>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

PS:

What's provided by apt-get seems to be available by apt, too. Instead
of "full-upgrade", "dist-upgrade" seemingly works, too.



[weremouse at moonstudio ~]$ sudo apt dist-upgrade
[sudo] password for weremouse: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.


I still do not know what config strings

  -o=config_string

are available for either "APT::" or "Dpkg::".