Linux.com

This is a nice introductory article to apt-get, but it misses a couple
of key points concerning aptitude and policy.

First: aptitude, while it has an interactive (curses/console) mode,
can also be run from the commandline, and largely supports the same
syntax as apt-get. The key advantages of aptitude are spelled out in a
posting by Joey Hess (one of the key Debian apt developers), <A HREF="http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2004/04/msg11344.html" title="debian.org">Nine
reasons why you should be using aptitude instead of apt-get or
dselect</a debian.org>. Briefly:

1. aptitude can look just like apt-get


2. aptitude tracks automatically installed packages


3. aptitude sanely handles recommends


4. use aptitude as a normal user and avoid hosing your system


5. aptitude has a powerful UI and searching capabilities


6. aptitude makes it easy to keep track of obsolete software


7. aptitude has an interface to the Debian task system


8. aptitude supports multiple sources


9. aptitude logs its actions

...the full article spells these out in more detail.

There are a few cases where aptitude fouls up, most notably,
on the first use on an otherwise apt-get managed system, aptitude may
want to remove a number (sometimes a large number) of packages.
This is due to its not tracking dselect-set preferences properly.
For those who run daily updates and downloads via cron, aptitude's
output is rather more verbose than apt-get. And some apt-get
commandline arguments are not supported. For basic installation and
removal, however, it's gold. I'd recommend running 'apt-get update' for
package lists, aptitude for all other standard operations.

Policy is the other aspect of Debian that's poorly
understood and most often underestimated, even by long-term Debian
users. One of the <A HREF="http://twiki.iwethey.org/Main/WhyDebianRocks" title="iwethey.org">better summaries</a iwethey.org>
of it is:

This is the crux, the narthex, the throbbing heart of Debian and
what makes it so utterly superior to all other operating systems.
Policy is defined. It is clear. It is enforced through the tools you
use every day. When you issue apt-get install foo, you're not just
installing software. You're enforcing policy - and that policy's
objective is to give you the best possible system.

What Policy defines are the bounds of Debian, not your own
actions on the system. Policy states what parts of the system the
package management system can change, and what it can't, how to
handle configuration files, etc. By limiting the scope of the
distribution in this way, it's possible for the system administrator
to make modifications outside the area without fear that Debian
packages will affect these changes. In essence, Policy introduces a
new class of bugs, policy bugs. Policy bugs are release-critical --
a package which violates policy will not be included in the official
stable Debian release.

Let me reiterate, because that is the whole secret: A
package which violates policy will not be included in the official
stable Debian release.

In addition to the TWikIWeThey page above (partly edited by me),
Manoj Srivastava's article <A HREF="http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/talks/why_debian/talk.html" title="debian.org">Why
Linux? Why Debian</a debian.org> is very strongly recommended.

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