Chapter 7. The Debian package management tools

38

7.1.3 aptitude

aptitude

is a package manager for Debian GNU/Linux systems that provides a frontend

to the apt package management infrastructure.

aptitude

is a text based interface using the

curses library, it can be used to perform management tasks in a fast and easy way.

aptitude

provides the functionality of

dselect

and

apt get

, as well as many additional

features not found in either program:

aptitude

offers access to all versions of a package.

aptitude

logs all its actions in

/var/log/aptitude

.

aptitude

makes it easy to keep track of obsolete software bylisting under  Obsolete

and Locally Created Packages .

aptitude

includes a fairly powerful system for searching particular packages and lim 

iting the package display. Users familiar with

mutt

will pick up quickly, as

mutt

was

the inspiration for the expression syntax.

aptitude

tracks which packages have been installed due to dependancies and removes

them automatically when the packages that needed them are removed from the system.

aptitude

can automatically installed Recommended: packages

2

.

aptitude

in full screen mode has

su

functionality embedded and can be run by nor 

mal user. It will call

su

(and ask for the root password, if any) when you really need

administrative privileges

You can use

aptitude

through a visual interface (simply run

aptitude

) or directly from the

command line. The command line syntax used is very similar to the one used in

apt get

. For

example, to install the foo package, you can run

aptitude install

foo

.

Note that

aptitude

is the recommended program by Debian to install a package and/or to

upgrade your system.

For more informations,

read the manual page

aptitude(8)

and install the

aptitude doc en

package.

7.1.4 dselect

This program is a menu driven interface to the Debian package management system. It is

particularly useful for first time installations. Some users might feel more comfortable using

aptitude

which is also recommended over

dselect

for large scale upgrades. For more

information on

aptitude

please see `aptitude' on the current page.

dselect

can:

2

Although his can also lead to systems which more packages than they actually need to work.