On 04/15/2016 03:36 PM, Linux O'Beardly wrote:
> For what it's worth, much of the apt vs aptitude is preference and
> opinion. However, aptitude does bit better of a job resolving
> dependencies and preventing them from breaking your system.

Yes, That's what I've always read so I have always used aptitude but in
this instance I have packages that will not upgrade via aptitude. I
mention this case specifically as the Debian docs[1] say "aptitude is
the recommended package manager for Debian".

I post this question with the intent to investigate why I might need to
familiarize myself more with APT as it's evident there are use cases
where aptitude cannot get the job done. I have struggled with situations
similar to this only rarely and could have possibly saved my self some
time knowing the nuances of APT (Debian indeed has one of the most
diverse set of package management tools around). With that in mind,
consider the following on this Debian Wheezy based system (apologies in
advance for the length of this post, but it seems pertinent to include)...


#
# apt-get upgrade <--<< kernel 2.6.32 will NOT install, updates will
#
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
proxmox-ve-2.6.32
The following packages will be upgraded:
base-files libnvpair1 libpve-common-perl libuutil1 libwbclient0
libzfs2 libzpool2 openssh-client openssh-server samba-common smbclient
ssh tzdata
13 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 8975 kB of archives.
After this operation, 1438 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?


#
# apt-get dist-upgrade <--<< kernel will install, updates will
#
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
pve-kernel-2.6.32-45-pve
The following packages will be upgraded:
base-files libnvpair1 libpve-common-perl libuutil1 libwbclient0
libzfs2 libzpool2 openssh-client openssh-server proxmox-ve-2.6.32
samba-common smbclient ssh tzdata
14 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 46.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 1438 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?


#
# aptitude upgrade <--<< kernel will install, updates will NOT
#
Resolving dependencies...
The following NEW packages will be installed:
pve-kernel-2.6.32-45-pve{a}
The following packages will be upgraded:
base-files libnvpair1 libpve-common-perl libuutil1 libwbclient0
libzfs2 libzpool2 openssh-client openssh-server proxmox-ve-2.6.32
samba-common smbclient ssh tzdata
The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed:
openssh-blacklist openssh-blacklist-extra samba-common-bin
14 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 46.2 MB of archives. After unpacking 1438 kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]


#
# aptitude safe-upgrade <--<< kernel will install, updates will NOT
#
Resolving dependencies...
The following NEW packages will be installed:
pve-kernel-2.6.32-45-pve{a}
The following packages will be upgraded:
base-files libnvpair1 libpve-common-perl libuutil1 libwbclient0
libzfs2 libzpool2 openssh-client openssh-server proxmox-ve-2.6.32
samba-common smbclient ssh tzdata
The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed:
openssh-blacklist openssh-blacklist-extra samba-common-bin
14 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 46.2 MB of archives. After unpacking 1438 kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]


#
# aptitude full-upgrade <--<< kernel will install, updates will NOT
#
The following NEW packages will be installed:
pve-kernel-2.6.32-45-pve{a}
The following packages will be upgraded:
base-files libnvpair1 libpve-common-perl libuutil1 libwbclient0
libzfs2 libzpool2 openssh-client openssh-server proxmox-ve-2.6.32
samba-common smbclient ssh tzdata
The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed:
openssh-blacklist openssh-blacklist-extra samba-common-bin
14 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 46.2 MB of archives. After unpacking 1438 kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]


[1] https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ch-uptodate.en.html