[Discuss] apt-get vs aptitude

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

Richard Pieri wrote:
> A notable gotcha is that apt-get, rather than aptitude, is the
> preferred utility for upgrading from Squeeze to Wheezy.

Rather annoying that they encouraged everyone to use aptitude and then
gave up on the idea.

(I thought we had a thread on apt-get vs aptitude on the list here
sometime in the past year, but I'm not seeing it in the archives.)

aptitude supposedly has superior algorithms for resolving conflicts.
Perhaps they have since rolled that in to apt-get.

I can only guess that the switch was unsuccessful simply due to inertia,
or because aptitude felt bloated due to having a curses UI (which I
never use).

I gather Debian hasn't decided to follow Ubuntu in using a wrapper
script to handle OS version updates. (I assume it is using apt-get under
the hood.) The script does help smooth over some details, like updating
your sources list and disabling 3rd party repositories, however I don't
think it restores everything post-upgrade,

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/