Aptitude remove from Ubuntu Maverick [closed]

Question

I've heard verious things about aptitude vs apt-get.

• pick either aptitude or apt-get and stick to it.
• aptitude keeps its own database so it's better to use that over apt-get.

So I always use aptitude. Now, Ubuntu Maverick has removed it. I realise I can install it again easily, but it makes me think it's better not to go against the grain and just start using apt-get universally instead.

What's the difference? Why is one better than the other? Why did Ubuntu choose to remove one by default? Should I just use apt-get all the way now for both my servers and desktops (apart from the LTS servers I'm already using aptitude on)? Has anything changed?

Thanks!

Answer 1

"in the old days" aptitude tracked dependencies better. now that apt-get has it together on that front and it's integrated with synaptic (which is what most users use...FEAR the cli right?) I think the dev team is trying to get the old-school users to switch so there isn't a - the old admin used aptitide the new one uses synaptic. omg why do all these packages show as manually installed?

Answer 2

I don't think there's a serious difference between apt-get and aptitude. I generally prefer apt-get (as someone say - "because it has fewer characters").

I would suggest you to take a look at this serverfaut question:

• http://serverfault.com/questions/21105/whats-the-difference-between-apt-get-and-aptitude

Among other things, there's an excellent answer by Raphaël Hertzog - take a look at it and the links he provides. They are very useful and explain the relation of apt-get and aptitude (among other packaging tools).

Given the above, the answers to your two questions:

• pick either aptitude or apt-get and stick to it.
• aptitude keeps its own database so it's better to use that over apt-get.

are:

• Yes, use one or another,
• The first part is correct - aptitute and apt-get have different databases. The second part is not correct - in general, I would not assume that one is better than another just because it uses another storage. This doesn't mean apt-get is better either...

Hope this will make some things clearer.