On Lu, 31 mai 10, 10:19:46, Mihamina Rakotomandimby wrote:
> What's the status?
> - aptitude better?
> - apt-get better?

From the top of my head (assuming you only use aptitude in command-line
mode):

advantages:
+ the resolver is more complex and *usually* gets the dependencies
better than apt-get
+ removes automatically installed packages in one go, no need for a
separate command
+ has an interactive dependency resolver even in command-line mode
+ advanced search patterns

disadvantages:
- lacks 'source' command
- might be slower
- simple searches are much slower than apt-cache (but apt-cache lacks
advanced searches)

differences:
* safe-upgrade allows package installs

IMHO: for simple update/upgrade cycles and install/remove/purge on a
stable machine it probably doesn't matter, but if you do complex
upgrades (like they often happen in testing and unstable) aptitude's
interactive mode is unbeatable!

Regards,
Andrei
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Both can achieve basically the same thing, but the real difference (IMO) is
in their respective goals/directions/purposes.


apt-* tools have become relatively complex over the years, and can be
considered a "low-level" interface to APT. To be clear, they're not *that*
complex, but you get the idea. One could say that they are mainly useful
for scripting or "uncommon" tasks.


aptitude is a higher level CLI and CUI (ncurses) tool that wraps around
apt-* tools. You can see that many little things make it more useable for a
user. For example, issuing 'aptitude update' will automatically check the
cache and output the number of upgrades available so that you don't have to
issue '(safe|full)-upgrade' to find out. Every output is basically reworked
to be more readable/useful for a human (another example: 'apt-cache show'
vs 'aptitude show'). Inputs are supposedly more intuitive as well (compare
'apt-cache search' and 'aptitude search'). This is all obviously very
subjective, and one might be perfectly OK without aptitude's "help", but
once again, you get the idea: aptitude wraps/aggregates everything a *user*
might need in a single place and provides a more suitable interface for a
*user*. As such, it's mostly useless for another program, and thus should
probably not be used for scripting.


Some people may have other opinions, and a technical comparison is still
meaningful in some cases (is the dependency-resolver still different for the
two?); I'm just not sure it's worth the trouble - one should just use what
he knows will work best for the task at hand, because the real difference
will most certainly be about comfort.


-thib


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On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Andrei Popescu <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> wrote:

On Lu, 31 mai 10, 10:19:46, Mihamina Rakotomandimby wrote:

> What's the status?

> - aptitude better?

> - apt-get better?



From the top of my head (assuming you only use aptitude in command-line

mode):



advantages:

+ the resolver is more complex and *usually* gets the dependencies

better than apt-get

+ removes automatically installed packages in one go, no need for a

separate command

+ has an interactive dependency resolver even in command-line mode

+ advanced search patterns

+ has why and why-not command
+ you can play minesweeper* (with curses ui of course) !




disadvantages:

- lacks 'source' command

- might be slower

- simple searches are much slower than apt-cache (but apt-cache lacks

advanced searches)



differences:

* safe-upgrade allows package installs



IMHO: for simple update/upgrade cycles and install/remove/purge on a

stable machine it probably doesn't matter, but if you do complex

upgrades (like they often happen in testing and unstable) aptitude's

interactive mode is unbeatable!



Regards,

Andrei

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Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers:

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic


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On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 12:58:11PM +0200, Javier Barroso wrote:
> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Andrei Popescu
> <andreimpopescu@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > On Lu, 31 mai 10, 10:19:46, Mihamina Rakotomandimby wrote:
> > > What's the status?
> > > - aptitude better?
> > > - apt-get better?
> >
> > From the top of my head (assuming you only use aptitude in command-line
> > mode):
> >
> > advantages:
> > + the resolver is more complex and *usually* gets the dependencies
> > better than apt-get
> > + removes automatically installed packages in one go, no need for a
> > separate command
> > + has an interactive dependency resolver even in command-line mode
> > + advanced search patterns
> >
>
> + has why and why-not command
> + you can play minesweeper (with curses ui of course) !
>
> >
> > disadvantages:
> > - lacks 'source' command
> > - might be slower
> > - simple searches are much slower than apt-cache (but apt-cache lacks
> > advanced searches)
> >
> > differences:
> > * safe-upgrade allows package installs
> >

Aptitude-gtk is looking beautiful. Maybe still not fully functional, but
some interesting features and a fantastic GUI. When in stable, it will
equal a new level of package management.

Tried it in the early version and went back to CLI/curses.

Just upgraded aptitude to unstable in order to install aptitude-gtk
experimental and see how it is doing.

--
Kind Regards,
Freeman

Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO (or Linux) is the
answer.


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On 31 May 2010, Freeman wrote:
>
> Aptitude-gtk is looking beautiful. Maybe still not fully functional, but
> some interesting features and a fantastic GUI. When in stable, it will
> equal a new level of package management.
>
> Tried it in the early version and went back to CLI/curses.
>
> Just upgraded aptitude to unstable in order to install aptitude-gtk
> experimental and see how it is doing.
>


No one has mentioned wajig yet. From the man page:


wajig packages into one tool many commands useful for managing a Debian
system. Instead of having to remember whether to use dpkg or apt-get or
apt-cache, etc, wajig does the selection of the appropriate tool for
you.

I've used it for several years now and have no complaints.

Anthony

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Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell


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