I bet a few others switched to aptitude which still seems to be superior (
apt-cache search $PACKAGEdoesn’t tell the state of packages), so why is apt-get recommended now?
Ari Pollak
[ Editor ]
There is a listing of the main differences here, and you can follow the discussions on the associated bug reports:
Adel Moin
[ Editor ]
As far as I am aware, aptitude is still the recommended tool, although they both work fine…
But the reason aptitude is recommended, is not because it just tells state of packages…
You can see state of a package using apt-get as well, but aptitude has many advantages… (e.g. better way of handling dependencies)
Could you please tell me where you seen apt-get is the recommended one? I could be wrong…
Good luck!
I’m sorry. I misunderstood. I thought the release notes were talking about daily/weekly package upgrades, but now I understand that it was talking about upgrading Debian 5 to 6. Thank you
Harri Haataja
[ Editor ]
Does apt-cache policy tell you what you want?
I find aptitude to be cumbersome, invasive and offensive. It’s almost a step back towards the horror that was dselect. I prefer to use apt-get with debfoster, deborphan and possibly debian-goodies plus build utils if I’m building. That’s all I need and want and more without getting in the way.
You are talking about the menu interface, aren’t you? I use aptitude solely on the command line (‘'aptitude install {package}’‘, ’‘aptitude safe-upgrade’‘ etc.).
This is actually a duplicate of this: http://ask.debian.net/questions/the-debian-administration-recommanded-program-apt-or-aptitude