[Gllug] Back-out plans on Debian/Redhat?

[Bruce Richardson]

On Sat, Mar 07, 2009 at 02:41:07PM +0000, Chris wrote:
> > As Bruce says, you wouldn't normally expect a "dist-upgrade" to be
> > necessary if you're just tracking a stable Debian distribution.
> > 
> > If you do an "apt-get upgrade" on the system now, does it show any
> > packages as being held back?
> > 
> > Regards,
> > John
> 
>    The recommended system for maintaining Debian is Aptitude, because it is
> better able to sort dependencies, and that should be run frequently to track
> security updates, not left until the entire distribution is due for an
> upgrade.

I really do question that.  I don't think much of the people who make
this recommendation, even if they have gotten it into the policy guide.  

apt-get does everything that you need for package management, certainly
interms of tracking dependencies, but as long as people fixate on
aptitude, which mostly provides a very poorly designed console UI, there
is a danger of important features only being created in aptitude and not
in the underlying tool.  For some time, the ability to distinguish
between packages that were deliberately installed and those which were
installed automatically as dependencies was present only in aptitude.
If the community as a whole had adopted aptitude like sheep, this might
have stayed that way.  Thankfully, this was corrected.

Don't be encouraging people to type 'aptitude install' when 'apt-get
install' is what they should be doing.  It's sloppy and invites bad
practice.

-- 
Bruce

I object to intellect without discipline.  I object to power without
constructive purpose. -- Spock
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