[mosh-devel] apt-get debian

[Axel Beckert]

Hi,

I'm sorry if this may sound rude, but I strongly have to object here:

On Sat, Dec 01, 2012 at 07:08:57PM -0600, cody wrote:
> I think the more correct command to install debian is:
> 
> sudo aptitude install mosh

No. Please don't do that! You will just cause confusion and unexpected
results for some users.

Let me explain why:

Neither aptitude nor sudo are installed on every Debian box. In
comparison, apt-get *is* installed on every Debian box as it's an
"essential" package.

And Debian doesn't install sudo by default. (Debian is not Ubuntu.)
And even if sudo is installed, e.g. via dependencies, it may not be
configured to work.

Additionally, with the upcoming release of Debian Wheezy, aptitude
will no more be installed by default, either.

> Most debian documentation uses aptitude

Not really. I suspect that some documentation just uses the same
preference as its author with regards to apt-get vs aptitude.

> since it is a superior package manager,

That depends a lot on the point of view and is rather a personal
preference. I know quite some people who explicitly prefer apt-get
over aptitude.

aptitude has some features which apt-get hasn't, but also has a
different usage philosophy. Despite having very similar command-line
syntaxes, aptitude is not exactly a drop-in replacement as it works
differently, e.g. it remembers "planned" installs and removals (e.g.
via the interactive interface) and executes them on the next install
run. It also automatically removes unneded dependencies by default
(like "apt-get autoremove", you can turn that off though). So the
command you're proposing may cause other packages which are not
related to mosh being installed or removed if someone scheduled them
beforehand or their last dependency has been removed outside of
aptitude. And hence confuse users.

aptitude also by default fixes broken dependencies for all installed
packages by default (configurable, too) while apt-get does that only
for the packages requested to be installed or when the option -f was
given.

If someone doesn't know about the differences between apt-get and
aptitude, it's safe to suddenly use apt-get instead of aptitude, but
it's not necessarily safe to do so vice versa, especially if aptitude
is used occassionally, but apt-get is used most of the time. (It's
though safe when switching from apt-get to aptitude for the first
time.)

> only installs the bare minimum, etc.

aptitude installs as much "bare minimum" as apt-get does. Whether they
install only the "bare minimum" or also "recommended" packages depends
primarily on the setting "APT::Install-Recommends" -- which counts for
both, apt-get and aptitude, in the same way. (If they don't honour
that setting in the same way, please write a bug report. :-)

aptitude may though resolve complex dependencies differently than
apt-get, and the user may interactively change aptitude's proposed
solution -- which is IMHO one of aptitude's most interesting features.

	Kind regards, Axel (one of Debian's aptitude upload sponsors)
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
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