Apt-get / dpkg tutorial

[krishna.murphy]

perhaps this could be a new thread? "How to resolve apt-get conflict problems."
I've been trying "apt-get -f autoremove libisc50- " etc. etc., with a long list of packages each with a "-" at the end, and it hasn't worked. I may have missed something, but this instruction isn't entirely clear to me.
apologies if this has already been posted/solved elsewhere.

I don't know why what you're doing should have failed, but if you post more details perhaps we can advise. On the other hand, you may be encountering a widely-reported problem, as mentioned by another user here. I would also note in passing the existence of tools other than apt-get for system maintenance, namely aptitude and synaptic - both of which are included with Knoppix out-of-the-box. Perhaps one of them could be useful here.

Cheers!
Krishna

[Capricorny]

I hoped to find some good, up to date info on package admin in this thread, but I could not see much. There is a need for a sticky package tools thread here, but maybe start a new one?

Here is a nice introduction I found: http://maketecheasier.com/become-an-apt-guru/2009/02/24.

Should we try to use aptitude instead of apt-get?
From the link:

Aptitude/Apt-get

There’s some debate and confusion regarding these two tools. Many Linux users have a hard time telling when/why to use one over the other, as they do roughly the same thing.
Short answer: use Aptitude.
Long answer: Both can be used to manage all software installations removals, and both will do a good job. The Debian team officially recommends using Aptitude. It’s not that it’s a LOT better than apt-get, but that it’s a little better, in lots of ways. You can use either one and it will meet your package management needs, but don’t mix and match on the same system. Pick one and stick with it.

That article is from 2009. Anyone having experiences/viewpoints?

[Capricorny]

Here is a new article, from June:
http://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/06/20...nager-for-you/

One important point is that the older warnings against mix'n match aptitude/apt-get are no longer that valid, and with the latest developments, they are about equivalent.

Here is the conclusion:

apt-get or aptitude?

First I want to make it clear that you can use both and mix them without problems. It used to be annoying when apt-get did not track which packages were automatically installed while aptitude did, but now that both packages share this list, there’s no reason to avoid switching back and forth.
I would recommend apt-get for the big upgrades (i.e. dist-upgrade from one stable to the next) because it will always find quickly a relatively good solution while aptitude can find several convoluted solutions (or none) and it’s difficult to decide which one should be used.
On the opposite for regular upgrades in unstable (or testing), I would recommend “aptitude safe-upgrade“. It does a better job than apt-get at keeping on hold packages which are temporarily broken due to some not yet finished changes while still installing new packages when required. With aptitude it’s also possible to tweak dynamically the suggested operations while apt-get doesn’t allow this. And aptitude’s command line is probably more consistent: with apt-get you have to switch between apt-get and apt-cache depending on the operation that you want to do, aptitude on the other hand does everything by itself.
Take some time to read their respective documentation and to try them.

So, it could seem that there is no longer any big point in choosing one over the other, and for actual use, I can continue with my current practice of mixing dpkg (single .deb packages), aptitude (work with better service), apt-get (as the standard CLI tool) and Synaptic (GUI tool).