Screen Savers Re-Visited

[Dreamofgilgamesh]

Ok, next question if you don't mind dear group. While i was doing the apt-get update thing i saw a huge list being downloaded (at least i imagine it was) but how do i know what was being downloaded, how can i tell?

Many thanks

Dreamofgilgamesh

[UnderScore]

Off the top of my head, try
ls -l /var/cache/apt/archives/

I hope this helps.
James

[Markus]

Easiest IMHO with: apt-get install synaptic

[user unknown]

If you invoke apt-get from a pure console, assuming tty3, (not xterm), you may, as root, call:

setterm -dump 3

which grabs the screen of tty3, and writes it to a file screen.dump or similar.
Rename the file immediately, because the next command will silently override it.

If you know in advance, that you like to review the output, you tee the output.
tee stands for the big letter T which is a graphical representation for a three-ended pipeline.

command -> _______ _______> screen
                  T
                  |
                  |
                  V
              logfile

(surely the best graphic which was ever seen).

The command is:

apt-get install foobar | tee apt.logfile

tee will silently override existing files.
If errormessages need to be logged, which usually goes to a separate stream (errorstream, 2) , while normal output goes to outputstream (1), but both normally occur mixed on the screen, tee normally only grabs the outputstream.
To get the errorstream too, we redirect it to the outputstream:

apt-get install foobar 2>&1 | tee apt.logfile

[Cuddles]

Ok, next question if you don't mind dear group. While i was doing the apt-get update thing i saw a huge list being downloaded (at least i imagine it was) but how do i know what was being downloaded, how can i tell?

Many thanks

Dreamofgilgamesh

I like what Markus said, but to explain what all that "stuff" was, here is my best answer...

Apt-get uses a database, that database has, within it, ALL the packages ( programs, libs, you name it ), dependancies, suggestions for other packages, and version numbers, to anything that you can "get" with a "apt-get", that are on the "sources.list" file entries you have entered in that file, as sources for packages.

Synaptic is way better than the "apt-get" textual versions, but, you can do a couple of CLI's to get most of the same information that Synaptic comes up with...

apt-get install [something] - to install a package
apt-cache search [something] - to search for something
apt-cache policy [something] - to show information on something
apt-cache show [something] - to show "other" information on something

All of this information will change after you do a "apt-get update", so it is maintained on the "local" database, as well as, if you change your sources.list file, and the new source sites do not contain as much packages as your old sources did, your results from any of the above commands, would be more limited.

So, most of the time, when you want to either look for something to install, or want to install something, or check what version of something you have - and what version is currently the newest, you will most always, do a apt-get update beforehand.

If I was interested in a game, say, and action game, or arcade game, I would do the following, so that I have the most recent information, locally, on what I am looking for:

apt-get update
apt-cache search arcade
... look through the list of output, find something I want ...
apt-get install pacman

Done...

Hope this helps, or at least "muddies" the water a little [giggle]
Ms. Cuddles

[Dreamofgilgamesh]

Thank you Ms. Cuddles, even i have a chance of understanding that.

Dreamofgilgamesh

[Cuddles]

No problem, glad I could help... You can also look at the man pages for apt-get too, to get ideas on command line options...

man apt-get
( which, I might add, does a lot of explaining, as well as giving the options and commands - I just walked through it again, and found even more options that I didn't even know existed )

Live Long, and Prosper...
Ms. Cuddles