On 01/15/2014 03:45 PM, Michael Torrie wrote: > If any Debian experts could give some some advice I'd appreciate it. My > question is, am I using aptitude wrong? What should I do differently? > > My debian laptop is a bit behind on updates at the moment, but I want to > install certain packages should bring in dependent updates. I'll run the > rest of the updates later. I tried to use aptitude to bring in a > package called clearlooks-phenix-theme (a GTK3 that fits better with my > Mate GTK2 theme). Aptitude reported that there were unmet dependencies, > which isn't surprising as there are some major gnome updates waiting to > be installed and GTK3 got bumped a revision. However rather than > resolving the dependencies and discovering that dependent packages > needed to be updated, the only solution aptitude could offer involved > removing nearly 100 packages including GTK+ 2 and GTK+ 3! If I had > naively allowed aptitude to continue I'd be left with a completely > broken system. None of aptitude's other solutions involved anything > other than removing lots of packages either. > > When I went back to using apt-get, I was not surprised to see that it > resolved dependencies simply by upgrading a half dozen packages along > with the new package install and everything is happy. > > Needless to say this experience has not impressed me with aptitude's > lack of super cow powers. Seems like a dangerous tool, if the end user > naively clicked "yes" to aptitude's suggestions. Am I using aptitude > wrong? Or is apt-get still the only game in town? > > thanks, > Michael
I've been noticing aptitude's dependency resolution getting sloppy recently, and a lot slower on dependency resolution and loading the package cache. I've also seen it complain about little things like "conflict: package X depends on package Y (> 2.1.1) but 2.1.1-53 is marked to be installed" So recently I've started either manually removing dependencies of packages I've long since forgotten; that seems to help point it in the right direction. I've wondered if holding packages might do the same thing. When all else fails, I install the newest apt-get, do a simulation, and if it does a better job, I let run. ;-Daniel /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
