[TriLUG] debian (actually ubuntu) and apt-get

[stan briggs]

cmp,

do you have any idea how apt-get or aptitude are related to that little
'updates are ready for download' icon that's in my top menu bar on my
6.10desktop installation? is that a bad thing to leave enabled? it
does have a
reasonable interface in that it shows you what it's going to do and even
provides a button to show it to you as it's doing it.

thanks,
sbb

On 4/18/07, Cristóbal Palmer <cristobalpalmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Stan,
>
> While apt-get is fine, aptitude makes it easier to quickly see what's
> going on during an upgrade and find out what a pesky package is doing
> (dependency-wise) without having to leave the interface.
>
> I recommend getting familiar with it. Here's a quick walkthrough.
>
> (0) turn off keyboard-based menu access in your terminal emulator
>
> aptitude uses F10 to get to its menus, and some terminal emulators are
> squatting on that. disable that in your gnome-term or whatever.
>
> (1) 'sudo aptitude'
>
> this fires up aptitude in its curses-based interactive mode
>
> (2) disable installation of "recommended" packages by default
>
> aptitude likes to pull in "recommended" packages by default. To
> disable this, go to the menu (F10) 'Options' -> 'Dependency handling'.
> Use the space bar to un-check "Install Recommended Packages
> Automatically" and then hit okay.
>
> (3) 'u'
>
> this tells aptitude to update its package list from the repos.
>
> (4) 'U'
>
> this is equivalent to 'dist-upgrade' on the command line. If there are
> updates, you'll see in the top right that it will tell you how much
> disk will be freed or used by the upgrade.
>
> (5) 'g'
>
> This will take you to a screen that shows packages to be installed
> (green), packages to be upgraded (light blue), removed (purple), etc.
> You can arrow down to any of them and hit enter to view detailed
> package info. You can also make changes to what will be installed by
> hitting '-' to remove, '_' to purge (remove and remove config files),
> '+' to add (a recommended package, for example). The menus will show
> you all the keyboard shortcuts and options...
>
> (6) 'g' (again)
>
> This will send aptitude on its way, actually doing the
> upgrade/install/etc.
>
> (7) use the regex search
>
> If you type '/' when aptitude first comes up, you'll be presented with
> a search box. The great thing about this box is that you can enter
> '^php5$' (for example) and it will take you right to the package named
> 'php5' instead of to 'php5-dev', which is what you'll get if you put
> 'php5' in the search box, and then have to use 'n' to go to the next
> search result a couple of times before actually getting to 'php5'. Use
> the regex-capable search box for great justice!
>
> I hope the above is helpful. A curses-based interface is a bit of a
> pain at first, but after a little adjustment, aptitude can be really
> nice. When I'm doing a dist-upgrade, I want to quickly know exactly
> what it's pulling, and it's nice to be able to fiddle before it takes
> off.
>
> Cheers,
> CMP
>
> On 4/18/07, stan briggs <stan at stanbriggs.com> wrote:
> > alan,
> >
> > your suggestions below fixed the problem beautifully.
> >
> > now, does this mean that the below set of commands would be good to run
> > regularly?
> >
> > thanks,
> > stan
>
>
> --
> Cristóbal M. Palmer
> http://claimid.com/cristobalpalmer
> TriLUG Vice Chair
>
> --
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>



-- 
Stan B. Briggs
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