

Linux Package Manager Command Line Comparison - denysonique
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman_Rosetta

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bradleyland
Most Debian/Ubuntu admins I know use aptitude these days, rather than
apt-<tool> directly.

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pavelkaroukin
Could you please elaborate or give a link to article(s) about why aptitude is
better?

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monkeyfacebag
Aptitude handles package removal, especially orphaned dependencies much
better. I think it's now included in the Debian base system, so there's very
little reason to prefer apt.

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saghul
I actually use apt-get because I like to keep my system with the least amount
of packages installed. I don't need any of the "recommended" packages, and if
I do I'd install them manually.

Also, I usually use deborphan to find orphaned packages and remove them, if
apt-get autoremove didn't find them.

~~~
Tobu
Recommends are handled the same way by both tools nowadays. There are
configuration options and flags to switch them off it you prefer.

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nodata
The yum stuff is missing parts...

Use some magic to fix broken dependencies in a system: yum distro-sync or yum
check and decide.

Remove dependencies that are no longer needed: package-cleanup --orphans

Downloads the corresponding source package(s) to the given package name(s):
yumdownloader --source PACKAGENAME

etc.

~~~
l0nk
If you think something is missing feel free to add it =)

And regarding the speed, well I got a server under Archlinux et another one
under Debian, they have the same age (around 1 year ago, when squeeze come
out) and pacman is more more quicker!

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nicktelford
I can't believe there are Debian/Ubuntu folks still not using "aptitude". Or
that it's not installed by default.

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Mavrik
I've been using Ubuntu with apt-get for quite a few years now. What additional
funcionality does aptitude offer over "plain" apt-get?

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nicktelford
The biggest advantage is when removing packages; its dependency resolution is
(supposedly) much better so it's able to find and remove orphan packages more
accurately without hosing your system.

It's also got a much friendlier set of commands:

    
    
      $ apt-get upgrade vim # aptitude upgrade vim
    
      $ apt-get dist-upgrade # aptitude full-upgrade
    
      $ apt-cache search # aptitude search
    
      $ apt-get install --reinstall vim # aptitude reinstall vim
    
      $ apt-get remove --purge vim # aptitude purge vim
    

The list goes on.

It's also got an awesome ncurses based interactive interface if you just type:

    
    
      $ aptitude
    

Great for sysadmins who miss synaptic or anyone who feels like a GUI is just
too mainstream.

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bostonvaulter2
What's the history of the aptitude and apt-* family of commands? Why do they
both exist?

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sciurus
It would be nice to see an overview from folks who've been involved. You can
get some of the history from

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dpkg#History>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dselect>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Packaging_Tool#History>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptitude_(software)#History>
[http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-
detaile...](http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-
detailed.en.html).

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klodolph
Someone should mention package manager performance. Searching for a package in
an Arch system will take a long time (10s or more) except on relatively fresh
installs. It may have been fixed by now, but it was a serious point of
irritation.

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Avshalom
Were you using XFS at the time? Search has never been a problem for me even on
multi year old installs, but there was (is?) something about XFS that made
pacman slow to a crawl.

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klodolph
Nope. The problem happened on multiple systems (i386, x64) regardless of
filesystem (ext3, reiser), although problems only start after a few months. I
found a bug in the bug tracker for it with multiple people confirming it and
the "solution" was to wipe the package database manually every once in a
while.

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virtualritz
Critically misses the most advanced package manager currently available:
Paludis. <http://paludis.exherbo.org/>

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phunehehe
Hah! So there is something on the front page of HN that I have referred to for
years :)

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g3orge
I was waiting something like that for a long time.

