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Neil Williams wrote: > On Fri, 2008-11-07 at 01:53 +0000, Keith Abraham wrote: >> Benjamin M. A'Lee wrote: >>> On Thu, Nov 06, 2008 at 03:08:54PM +0000, Keith Abraham wrote: >>>> From experience it is important with Debian unstable to only use >>>> apt-get dist-upgrade >>>> when upgrading or prreferably sidux's smxi script. (Aptitude and >>>> synaptic etc can lead >>>> to problems "down the line".) >>> I've been using aptitude to upgrade machines running unstable for years >>> without a hitch. aptitude is certainly recommended over apt-get, and has >>> been for some time now (since sarge was release, iirc). >>> >> While Debian recommends the use of Aptitude and Adept when upgrading Debian >> stable and testing it deprecates it's use for upgrading sid. > > ? Eh ? Where have you seen that info? aptitude is recommended for all > installations and all upgrade paths, just the same as apt-get. aptitude > is gradually replacing apt-get in various documentation sources (to > assist people new to Debian) but the day-to-day reality is that both are > used in all situations and a failure of either upgrade method is deemed > a release-critical bug. > > Adept and synaptic have no particular status - if either produce errors, > it is merely a bug in the relevant package and the workaround is to go > to the command line with aptitude or apt-get. > >> Aptitude >> can be used to >> upgrade sid but you have to keep your eyes open for the occasional silly >> things it >> will try to do eg. > > aptitude and apt-get will both struggle with unstable from time to time > - particularly in the weeks after a release when hundreds of updates > that were held back during the release freeze are all uploaded in a very > short space of time. That is why Sid is unstable. > >> This sort of thing rarely happens with apt-get. > > I disagree. I've had plenty of situations in unstable where apt-get > dist-upgrade would have removed huge chunks of GNOME or the entire > bluetooth stack or an entire cross-compiler toolchain. > >> I've been using sid consistently since 2003 and can affirm the above. >> apt-get has caused me the least problems (especially when upgrading X). > > The two programs have different algorithms for dependency resolution and > that is all that is happening. > > Lenny includes another set of convergence patches between aptitude and > apt, trying to iron out some of the differences. > > This has a lot to say on the subject and most of the comment is from the sidux maintainers:- http://sidux.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-5542.html These guys know more about managing Debian sid than I''ll ever know. Neil: If I have the time I'll try to find the Debian quote vis-a-vis apt-get and sid. If I'm correct it was made fairly recently by a Debian developer in answer to a question regarding Debian sid. It's also worth remembering that Debian will not recommend anything other than stable for day to day use and most comment is made in light of this. Keith -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html