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[SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#21 Post by Bulkley »

cds60601 wrote: 2023-01-28 18:42 For me the use of synaptic is when I wish peruse the packages that are available.
For a package browser try packagesearch.

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#22 Post by wizard10000 »

CwF wrote: 2023-01-27 20:19...Synaptic isn't as strong as aptitude in it's problem solving skills.
I'm beginning to explore aptitude's TUI and after a few tries the advantage is clear but I've gotta say the UI is a bit less than intuitive :mrgreen:

I mainly use synaptic for its search and filtering capabilities, things that could be done in a terminal window but no thank you :)
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#23 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

wizard10000 wrote: 2023-01-28 20:32
CwF wrote: 2023-01-27 20:19...Synaptic isn't as strong as aptitude in it's problem solving skills.
I'm beginning to explore aptitude's TUI and after a few tries the advantage is clear but I've gotta say the UI is a bit less than intuitive :mrgreen:
There is a basic intro here: https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude#Interactive_Use
I'll add a few I use often enough to remember ...
l (lower L) = Limit shown packages to search string
i = rotate the info pane
C = show changelog
m/M = mark manual/auto
ctrl-u = UNDO
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#24 Post by steve_v »

CwF wrote: 2023-01-28 16:50For those with low comprehension intercepted by personal issues
I'm not entirely sure if this is intended to be an insult, or just some strange form of word-salad nit-picking over semantics. Either way you're quoting yourself, so I'm going to ignore it.
CwF wrote: 2023-01-28 16:50I was a little worried that my launch to 'vertical' was going to happen to early.
If you're going for orbit, you probably want a little lean to the east to take advantage of the Oberth effect. I don't know what this has to do with apt vs. synaptic though.

CwF wrote: 2023-01-28 16:50a terminal emulator on the desktop is as 'GUI' as is synaptic.
A CLI is a CLI, regardless of how it is rendered. If you're typing in commands and getting responses line-by-line, you are interacting with a command-line interface.

More to the point, I can think of quite few scenarios where one might "require" CLI package managemnt tools, not least of which the vast majority of GNU/Linux servers not having a GUI of any sort installed.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#25 Post by CwF »

steve_v wrote: 2023-01-29 01:04 A CLI is a CLI, regardless of how it is rendered.
Not really. Without a desktop behind it aptitude, even apt, will complete a large dist-upgrade somewhat faster than anything on a running desktop. I let synaptic poke through it, and go for another cup of coffee.

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#26 Post by canci »

Well, a python script running on CLI can also be a bloaty mess compared to lean Bash or C. CLI isn't always the same speed.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#27 Post by wizard10000 »

dilberts_left_nut wrote: 2023-01-28 22:13There is a basic intro here: https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude#Interactive_Use
I'll add a few I use often enough to remember ...
l (lower L) = Limit shown packages to search string
i = rotate the info pane
C = show changelog
m/M = mark manual/auto
ctrl-u = UNDO
Thanks - I may have to do my own cheat sheet for a few weeks. There are still things I'd prefer to do with synaptic but aptitude is such a good fit for Testing and Unstable that I think it's worth exploring.

All I've been doing is an alias that looks like this: alias upgrade = "sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude full-upgrade" and I'm not scratching the surface of what I can do with aptitude but once I get the basics down I may not need synaptic any more :mrgreen:

cheers - and thanks again.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#28 Post by CwF »

I still think Aptitude is best used when all users are logged out and then drop to a tty as root.

So when Synaptic seems confused or I want some faster results I'd drop to a root tty. The F10 key then helps navigate. I've lost track of a script I used to use to load aptitude in an xserver xterm so I had a mouse and nicer fonts. It's been awhile since I've felt the advantage, synaptic matured well over the last releases.

There is the html based aptitude-doc package available for download in many languages.

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#29 Post by craigevil »

Never really bothered to learn how to use Aptitude.
I do find it good for a couple of things, searching for packages left behind and obsolete packages.

aptitude purge ~c
aptitude search ?obsolete

For everything else I use apt. I do use Synaptic to look for things like games.

For updates and most install/removes I use apt.

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#30 Post by canci »

For me, aptitude did a bit too much heuristic guessing and that's something I never needed, so I just stuck with apt-get or apt in recent times.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#31 Post by wizard10000 »

CwF wrote: 2023-01-29 16:37...I've lost track of a script I used to use to load aptitude in an xserver xterm so I had a mouse and nicer fonts.
I've got hotkeys for server and laptop terminator so got nicer fonts and mouse support, beginning to think that part of the sorta confusing UI is my fairly stubborn insistence on using 80x24 terminals even though Ihave no idea why I do this :)
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#32 Post by craigevil »

CwF wrote: 2023-01-29 16:37 I still think Aptitude is best used when all users are logged out and then drop to a tty as root.

So when Synaptic seems confused or I want some faster results I'd drop to a root tty. The F10 key then helps navigate. I've lost track of a script I used to use to load aptitude in an xserver xterm so I had a mouse and nicer fonts. It's been awhile since I've felt the advantage, synaptic matured well over the last releases.

There is the html based aptitude-doc package available for download in many languages.
There are several good docs for apt/aptitude:
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apti ... 02.en.html
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... et.en.html
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apti ... 02.en.html
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... ls.en.html
https://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude

The first 4 can be installed or downloaded.

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#33 Post by sunrat »

canci wrote: 2023-01-29 17:46 For me, aptitude did a bit too much heuristic guessing and that's something I never needed, so I just stuck with apt-get or apt in recent times.
Same here. apt for Sid with apt-listbugs. I have occasionally used Synaptic for package search but not installs, apt list, apt search, apt show, and apt policy pretty much cover package searching instead.
siduction have actually introduced nala for package management now, so another contender! :D It has weird behaviour of automatically running autoremove which is a Very Bad Idea® IMO but can be disabled in its conf file.

aptitude I have only ever used to attempt to resolve conflicts usually with third party repo or manually installed packages. and it has failed almost every time. Apart from conflict resolution, apt has pretty much the same functionality.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#34 Post by epp »

sunrat wrote: 2023-01-29 21:38
siduction have actually introduced nala for package management now, so another contender! :D It has weird behaviour of automatically running autoremove which is a Very Bad Idea® IMO but can be disabled in its conf file
nala is in the Debian repo. I installed it once to see how it did, but it displayed what appeared to be script errors when run, so I removed it.

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#35 Post by sunrat »

epp wrote: 2023-01-29 21:47 nala is in the Debian repo. I installed it once to see how it did, but it displayed what appeared to be script errors when run, so I removed it.
Yeah I don't use it either but thought I'd mention it seeing siduction uses it. It is quite new and has seen significant recent development so may be a different beast from when you tried it. I'm familiar and happy with apt so will stick with it.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#36 Post by epp »

sunrat wrote: 2023-01-29 21:53
epp wrote: 2023-01-29 21:47 nala is in the Debian repo. I installed it once to see how it did, but it displayed what appeared to be script errors when run, so I removed it.
Yeah I don't use it either but thought I'd mention it seeing siduction uses it. It is quite new and has seen significant recent development so may be a different beast from when you tried it. I'm familiar and happy with apt so will stick with it.
apt also wanted to install more than a dozen python3 packages, with nala. This was only a couple of weeks ago that I tried it.

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#37 Post by canci »

Yeah, all the python dependencies and general slowness of python scripts compared to C or Bash is what turned me off nala as well, although I really like the looks of it. I think the dev is also here on our forums.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Apt vs Synaptic

#38 Post by craigevil »

Nala's default uses apt full-upgrade which will remove packages. You can change that by editing the config file.
Nala's config is at /etc/nala/nala.conf

The line to edit is :
# Set to false to disable auto auto-removing
auto_remove = true

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