On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:03:02 +0200 Hans <hans.ullr...@loop.de> wrote:
> Dear list, > > over the many years we got different tools for upgrading debian in > the commandline. These tools behave differently and also we get > different results, when eecuting. > > First, we have the oldest, whcih is apt-get. > apt-get update, apt-get upgrade or apt-get full-upgrade does a good > job. > > However, we also have aptitude, but > aptitude update, aptitude upgrade and aptitude full-upgrade are doing > also a good job, but not the same as apt-get does. Also it looks, > aptitude update loads its own list and is not using the list from > apt-get (otherwise it could not explain, why aptitude and apt-get > every time reloads the new list, when one of the other was eecuted > before). Also the dependencies in both tools are handled different. I believe they use different cache structures, and if tool A has been used since tool B was last used, next time tool B is used it will not know what has been upgraded while it has 'been away', and will refresh its own cache. > > And at last, we have apt, which (as far as I now), soemtimes is > calling apt- get, and sometimes is calling aptitude. > > This is somehow rather irritating! > > So, my question is: Which one is recommended, when updating and > upgrading is used in a script, so that it causes as little as > possible pain? > > It means: When the script is not eecuted daily, but let us say, every > two weeks, and we have lots of packages. > > At the moment I am using aptitude, this works great in short periods, > but after al longer time, it crashes, because some dependencies could > not resolve. > > Independent of my personal use: Which one is recommended? > I believe apt is currently recommended. Having said that, sometimes the upgrade notes for a new Stable recommend using a particular tool, and obviously you would go with that advice. I seem to recall that apt will not just use one of the earlier upgrade tools, but will do a bit of tidying up afterwards. With the earlier tools, the package cache has to be manually cleared periodically. My experience of apt-get and aptitude is that aptitude has a better resolver and will often clear a medium-sized pile of packages when apt-get won't. However, it achieves this improved performance at the expense of speed and simplicity. If you run Unstable, especially, and leave upgrading too long, aptitude can be overwhelmed by several hundred packages to organise, and will apparently just hang. Aptitude should be fine on Stable, which should never have more than about a dozen packages upgradable, unless you leave it for many months. I'd still use apt. -- Joe
