muon makes the big time ;-)

[wizard10000]

Once you make /. you can figure you've arrived

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/05...oftware-Center

"The Muon Suite has been chosen to be the default package manager for Kubuntu 11.10, the Oneiric Ocelot. By the time Kubuntu 11.10 is released the Muon Suite will have had its first birthday. In this year I believe that the Muon Suite has vetted itself, proving to be a robust package manager as well as a stable set of applications. With my Kubuntu developer hat on, I believe that it was a good move to wait a bit before jumping on the 'latest and greatest' for its shininess value, though I can't deny that it would have been neat to have the Muon Suite included a bit sooner"

[ardvark71]

Re: muon makes the big time ;-)

Hi all...

It would have to be pretty good to get me away from my old standby, Synaptic.

Regards...

[abalone]

Re: muon makes the big time ;-)

That could be(come) good. The Muon version in the repos seemed "mostly" on par with Synaptic when I tried it, except marking "residual config" packages for deletion didn't seem to enable the "Apply Changes" function. And there was no "select all". (Oh, and it just co-removed (with a font I wanted to remove) a bunch of packages like LibreOffice, hplip, cups and vlc without warning... gotta remember to use "Preview Changes"!)

Trying the version from ppa:echidnaman/qapt-experimental - Ctrl-A works

[Snowhog]

Re: muon makes the big time ;-)

Kudos to Muon, and congrats to it's developer.

I learned quite some time back, to do all my actual installs/removals/purges from the CLI using apt-get (others prefer aptitude). I do have Muon installed - have since it first came out. Prior to Muon, I would install Synaptic as the first 'change' to a newly installed Kubuntu.

I use Muon for searches and initial information on a package. But, I close it and go to a console to actually 'do the deed.' I'm just more comfortable doing package management from the CLI. I always do a simulated install/removal/purge so I can 'see' what is going to happen. Forwarned is forarmed.

[Telengard]

Re: muon makes the big time ;-)

I learned quite some time back, to do all my actual installs/removals/purges from the CLI using apt-get (others prefer aptitude).

The reason to prefer Aptitude is because it is a full featured package management suite. If you just type aptitude with no arguments you get a menu driven application not unlike Adept or Synaptic, but text based instead of graphical.

Some of Aptitude's commands are quite cryptic though. Just learning the search syntax is a huge undertaking. The time invested pays off though, when you learn that you can apply actions to multiple packages with one pattern in an single command line. To get the same functionality from apt-get you need the help of dpkg, egrep and some shell scripting.

So why do so many Ubuntu-ers prefer apt-get? I'm not completely sure, but I think it is probably that most people prefer using graphical package managers anyway. The simpler syntax of apt-get is certainly easier to learn, so that may have something to do with it, but it is easier because it is less sophisticated.

TLDR version
If all you need is install and remove, then apt-get is probably good enough for you.

[wizard10000]

Re: muon makes the big time ;-)

The simpler syntax of apt-get is certainly easier to learn, so that may have something to do with it, but it is easier because it is less sophisticated.

Oldtimers use apt because until recently you weren't supposed to use apt and aptitude on the same system - because aptitude used to (and occasionally still does) goober up apt's data and because aptitude is a frontend to apt. Unless you're querying 'why' or 'why not' aptitude *is* apt - and the 'why' thing can be done just as easily by 'apt-cache rdepends'

Besides, aptitude doesn't have Super Cow Powers.

Try this sometime -

sudo apt-get moo

You might take a look at package management in the Debian manual.

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/re...e/ch02.en.html

Two of the three listed aptitude bugs have been closed but there's one still open - and The Debian Way is when in doubt, use apt.

For me anyway, aptitude's enhanced search functionality is of questionable value. If I need to dig that deep into package queries I'm firing up synaptic and creating a custom filter, but that's just me. The older I get the more I like the pointy-clicky stuff

[Telengard]

Re: muon makes the big time ;-)

Hey wizard10000,

I'm not trying to convert anyone to Aptitude here. If anything I'm just curious why it is not the preferred command line PM in Ubuntu. Maybe the thread should split at this point, but ... oh WTH

For those who don't have a clue what wizard10000 and I are talking about:
http://ubuntu-for-humans.blogspot.co...in-ubuntu.html
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptitudeSurvivalGuide
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Co...nt?action=show

Besides, aptitude doesn't have Super Cow Powers.

Can apt-get become root?

[img width=400 height=246]http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/2536/ksnapshot46.png[/img]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Can apt-get play Minesweeper?

[img width=400 height=246]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9423/ksnapshot47.png[/img]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

No? I didn't think so! :P

Okay, those are somewhat dubious features, but then so is this:

sudo apt-get moo

foo$ apt-get moo
     (__)
     (oo)
  /------\/
 / |  ||
 * /\---/\
  ~~  ~~
...."Have you mooed today?"...
foo$

Note that sudo is not required for the moo command! :P

You might take a look at package management in the Debian manual.

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/re...e/ch02.en.html

Or this:
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/re...titude_literal

* The aptitude command is the most versatile package management tool.
* aptitude offers the fullscreen interactive text user interface.
* aptitude offers the commandline user interface, too.
* aptitude is most suitable for the daily interactive package management such as inspecting installed packages and searching available packages.
* aptitude offers an enhanced package resolver which also uses an extra package state data used only by aptitude.
* aptitude supports autoinstall and autoremove of recommended packages.
* aptitude supports logging of package activities.
* aptitude offers an enhanced regex based search on all of the package metadata.
* aptitude can manage multiple versions of packages without using /etc/apt/preferences and it is quite intuitive.

(I bolded some text in the quote to highlight the features I'm talking about.)

But yeah, that list is immediately followed by the note of the bugs you mentioned. With sophistication comes greater potential for bugs. Forewarned is forearmed

For me anyway, aptitude's enhanced search functionality is of questionable value. If I need to dig that deep into package queries I'm firing up synaptic and creating a custom filter, but that's just me. The older I get the more I like the pointy-clicky stuff

Which is the sentiment I was alluding to in my previous post. Most people seem to prefer a single unified graphical interface for package management, and understandably so.

If you only know about apt-get for command line package management then it seems weak and cumbersome compared to Adept or Synaptic. That's because is weak and cumbersome in comparison. The apt-cache + apt-get combination cannot reproduce all the functionality of Adept or Synaptic. Aptitude can!

But as I said before, if you combine apt-cache, apt-get, dpkg, and egrep with some shell scripting, then you can reproduce most of the functions in Adept, Synaptic, and Aptitude.

[wizard10000]

Re: muon makes the big time ;-)

Hey wizard10000,

I'm not trying to convert anyone to Aptitude here...

I snipped out a buncha good stuff here just for the sake of our studio audience

I'm not trying to convert anyone either - but the older I get the easier I want things to be; at the very least I want a choice on whether to do things the hard way. Got no problem here using a tool to run queries as I'm way too lazy these days to build a regex query if all I want is some information that a GUI will give me with a couple mouse clicks

I do like choices, though. I'm glad we've both got something that makes us happy