[Gllug] Aptitude

[Jack Bertram]

* Peter Grandi <pg_gllug at gllug.for.sabi.co.UK> [050913 12:42]:
> >>> On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 11:47:57 +0100, Jack Bertram
> >>> <jack at jbertram.net> said:
> 
> jack> Why would running "aptitude upgrade"
> 
> That's a rather dangerous thing to do. 'dist-upgrade' is well
> defined, global 'upgrade' is a much fuzzier concept.

Has this always been true?  I'm sure I was told to do 'aptitude update;
aptitude upgrade' every week when I switched to Debian to keep up to
date

> Also, 'dist-upgrade' to a specifically named edition (eg
> 'sarge') is rather safer than to a state (e.g. 'stable'),
> because the association between editions and states is not
> immutable.

yes. 

> jack> from the commandline and running aptitude interactively,
> jack> then pressing "g", do different things? [ ... ]
> 
> Perhaps because by default in interactive mode 'aptitude' also
> adds recommended packages to the installation -- but not sure
> about this. If you configure 'aptitude' conservatively (which is
> not quite the default) the behaviour should be the same.
> 
> I suppose that the reason why the interactive defaults are less
> conservative is that when you press 'g' you are given the chance
> to review (and backout) the requested actions package by
> package, category by category.

Ok - but I can't see how to stop aptitude doing this.  I've unchecked
all the extra options in aptitude, but it still has the same list when
you choose "g".  How can I get it to reset all its selections?

> jack> Running Debian stable - I think I was on woody, then got
> jack> bitten by the upgrade, but not quite sure.
> 
> Uhm, «I think I was on woody» is a somewhat dangerous frame of
> mind.

Well, I was on 3.1 for years and thought that they would never
upgrade...  Is this woody or sarge?

> I would suggest making sure which Debian edition you want to
> have installed ('woody' or 'sarge', and I would strongly suggest
> 'sarge' instead of 'woody'); also make sure all the paths in
> '/etc/apt/sources.list' mention exlicit edition names (eg
> 'woody', 'sarge', 'etch', 'sid' currently) instead of states,
> and you have edition pinning in '/etc/apt/apt.conf' with
> 
>   APT::Default-Release "sarge";
> 
> or similar. There are a few sample configs with URLs to
> explanations about pinning etc. here:
> 
>   http://WWW.sabi.co.UK/Cfg/APT/

Will look.  Thanks.

> It is also my preference to disable automatic broken dependency
> fixing, because this can result is rather extensive changes if
> one tries an excessively daring upgrade.
> 
> Final warning: the APT system is designed to work automagically
> if all your packages are from the same edition, and somewhat
> helpful but risky if they are to be taken from two (stable, like
> 'woody' and 'sarge') editions; it takes some real understanding
> of things like ABIs, ABI transitions, dependencies etc. to do
> things right if you are taking packages from more editions and
> these include the 'testing' edition (currently 'etch') and the
> 'unstable' state.

I'm trying to update from one edition, so I don't understand why this
server is buggered.  Your advice is good, though.

jack
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