stoffepojken wrote:The first feature is great. I love that I dont have to type aptitude safe/full-upgrade to see if I have any updates. I dont understand the second feature about installing dependencies. Hasnt aptitude always done that? Isnt a dependency always a dependency?
I love the first feature too. I'm sorry but I don't think that I explained the second feature very well. Here's the deal: in old Aptitude (and current apt-get), if you ask for "safe-upgrade (or in apt-get "upgrade"), you
only get newer versions of packages that are already installed. If, however, there's an available update of something you have - package Q - but it has a new dependency - package Z - which you don't yet have installed, then Aptitude and apt-get would
not install the newer Q. That used to be when you got the "package Q" held back message, and if you wanted it, you had to do a dist-upgrade (full-upgrade in Aptitude), or specifically ask to install package Q (rather than just ask for a generic "update").
If you call for a general update now, the new Aptitude would install package Z in order to update Q without your having to ask for a "full-upgrade". So, the new "safe-upgrade" is more "aggressive" than the old one. I suspect that some people won't like this change. There is less of a difference between "safe-upgrade" and "full-upgrade" in Aptitude than there is between "upgrade" and "dist-upgrade" in apt-get. Here's Burrow's much more direct version:
Daniel Burrows wrote:* safe-upgrade will now install new packages to fulfill dependences (but it will never remove packages, downgrade packages, or install a version that's not the default). The option --no-new-installs will disable this behavior.
@ Eyelid - the difference between "safe-upgrade" and "full-upgrade" has to do with "removing, downgrading, etc" in order to install new versions. I don't think that Aptitude tracks the toolchain per se.