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Yeah, until you do an upgrade: "The upgrade process for some previous releases recommended the use of aptitude for the upgrade. This tool is not recommended fo

Yeah, until you do an upgrade: "The upgrade process for some previous releases recommended the use of aptitude for the upgrade. This tool is not recommended for upgrades from wheezy to jessie." See https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html#upgradingpackages https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/c...

creshal 11y ago
Debian's zigzagging between package management frontends (dselect, apt-*, aptitude, dpkg, now apt?, … all in use in parallel) is incredibly frustrating. Pacman e.g. is so much easier to use because everything's in one well-structured command.
- toyg 11y ago
  It probably reflects the classic problem of developer turnover in OSS projects and the resulting approach to technical debt. Old developers fade away, young guns come through (often still in academia), "this code is all crap, let's chuck it out and build something better, how hard can it be?"...
- julian-klode 11y ago
  Well, just use apt(8): apt install - Install packages apt remove - Remove packages apt upgrade - Upgrade packages without removing apt full-upgrade - Upgrade packages, allowing removals apt update - Refresh sources apt show - Show a package apt list - List packages, you can filter by stuff like --installed or --upgradable
  - creshal 11y ago
    1. "Just use $newtool" has been Debian's spiel for every past release, and every time it's a different one. 2. Why full-upgrade and not dist-upgrade like in all the other debian package managers? Would that little bit of internal consistency really have hurt? 3. Still does not seem to cover all use cases.
    - __david__ 11y ago
      I don't know what you mean. dselect is like 2000 era, and was replaced by "aptitude" at least 15 years ago. "apt" has been around since the beginning and still works just fine. The fact that "aptitude" has some overlap with "apt" is a detail--its real strength is that its curses ui (which was a massive improvement over dselect).

creshal 11y ago

Debian's zigzagging between package management frontends (dselect, apt-*, aptitude, dpkg, now apt?, … all in use in parallel) is incredibly frustrating. Pacman e.g. is so much easier to use because everything's in one well-structured command.

toyg 11y ago
It probably reflects the classic problem of developer turnover in OSS projects and the resulting approach to technical debt. Old developers fade away, young guns come through (often still in academia), "this code is all crap, let's chuck it out and build something better, how hard can it be?"...
julian-klode 11y ago
Well, just use apt(8): apt install - Install packages apt remove - Remove packages apt upgrade - Upgrade packages without removing apt full-upgrade - Upgrade packages, allowing removals apt update - Refresh sources apt show - Show a package apt list - List packages, you can filter by stuff like --installed or --upgradable
- creshal 11y ago
  1. "Just use $newtool" has been Debian's spiel for every past release, and every time it's a different one. 2. Why full-upgrade and not dist-upgrade like in all the other debian package managers? Would that little bit of internal consistency really have hurt? 3. Still does not seem to cover all use cases.
  - __david__ 11y ago
    I don't know what you mean. dselect is like 2000 era, and was replaced by "aptitude" at least 15 years ago. "apt" has been around since the beginning and still works just fine. The fact that "aptitude" has some overlap with "apt" is a detail--its real strength is that its curses ui (which was a massive improvement over dselect).