Dear list,

over the many years we got different tools for upgrading debian in the commandline. These tools behave differently and also we get different results, when eecuting.

First, we have the oldest, whcih is apt-get.
apt-get update, apt-get upgrade or apt-get full-upgrade does a good job.

However, we also have aptitude, but
aptitude update, aptitude upgrade and aptitude full-upgrade are doing also a good job, but not the same as apt-get does. Also it looks, aptitude update loads its own list and is not using the list from apt-get (otherwise it could not explain, why aptitude and apt-get every time reloads the new list, when
one of the other was eecuted before). Also the dependencies in both tools are handled different.

And at last, we have apt, which (as far as I now), soemtimes is calling apt- get, and sometimes is calling aptitude.

This is somehow rather irritating!

So, my question is: Which one is recommended, when updating and upgrading is used in a script, so that it causes as little as possible pain?

It means: When the script is not eecuted daily, but let us say, every two weeks, and we have lots of packages.

At the moment I am using aptitude, this works great in short periods, but
after al longer time, it crashes, because some dependencies could not resolve.

Independent of my personal use: Which one is recommended?

Thanks for reading. Short answer will be ok.

Best

Hans

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On 27 Aug 2024 21:03 +0200, from hans.ullrich@loop.de (Hans):

So, my question is: Which one is recommended, when updating and upgrading is used in a script, so that it causes as little as possible pain?

apt-get and friends, including the dpkg set of tools if necessary.

I believe apt even prints a message to that effect when started.

See also the introductory paragraph of the apt(8) man page.

--
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

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On Tuesday, 27 August 2024 15:03:02 -04 Hans wrote:

Dear list,

over the many years we got different tools for upgrading debian in the commandline. These tools behave differently and also we get different results, when eecuting.

First, we have the oldest, whcih is apt-get.
apt-get update, apt-get upgrade or apt-get full-upgrade does a good
job.

However, we also have aptitude, but
aptitude update, aptitude upgrade and aptitude full-upgrade are doing
also a good job, but not the same as apt-get does. Also it looks,
aptitude update loads its own list and is not using the list from
apt-get (otherwise it could not explain, why aptitude and apt-get
every time reloads the new list, when one of the other was eecuted
before). Also the dependencies in both tools are handled different.

And at last, we have apt, which (as far as I now), soemtimes is
calling apt- get, and sometimes is calling aptitude.

This is somehow rather irritating!

Do you really mean irritating or just confusing?
"irritating" equals the German "ver�rgert"; while
"confusing" is what Germans just find "irritierend".
:-)

So, my question is: Which one is recommended, when updating and
upgrading is used in a script, so that it causes as little as
possible pain?

It means: When the script is not eecuted daily, but let us say, every
two weeks, and we have lots of packages.

At the moment I am using aptitude, this works great in short periods,
but after al longer time, it crashes, because some dependencies could
not resolve.

Independent of my personal use: Which one is recommended?

Thanks for reading. Short answer will be ok.

Best

Hans

I'd like to know too. I usually use apt. Sometimes aptitude when I'm
looking for something - me being lazy. But I find aptitude to be
inconvenient when trying to resolve dependency problems. Packages which aptitude will not purge can easily be deinstalled, including all
configuration files, by invoking apt purge for example.

All the best
--
Eike Lantzsch KY4PZ / ZP5CGE

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On Tue, Aug 27, 2024 at 09:03:02PM +0200, Hans wrote:

Dear list,

This is somehow rather irritating!

So, my question is: Which one is recommended, when updating and upgrading is used in a script, so that it causes as little as possible pain?

apt-get is potentially the most basic. Aptitude resolves dependencies differently and sometimes more effectively. Apt as such I don't use (even though I named the whole idea :) )

apt-get normally "just works" which is why it is recommended for upgrading between Debian major releases.

It means: When the script is not eecuted daily, but let us say, every two weeks, and we have lots of packages.

There is something about the number of packages installed at once and interdependencies - maybe run whichever more often. Installing 20 packages
at a time may be easier than installing 80 packages at once, for example.

At the moment I am using aptitude, this works great in short periods, but after al longer time, it crashes, because some dependencies could not resolve.

Independent of my personal use: Which one is recommended?

Whichever one works for you ... there is no definitive answer.

Thanks for reading. Short answer will be ok.

ok - the short answer you already predicted :)

Best

Hans

All the very best, as ever,

Andy
(amacater@debian.org)




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On 27 Aug 2024 19:28 +0000, from amacater@einval.com (Andrew M.A. Cater):

apt-get [...] is recommended for upgrading between Debian major releases.

Is it, though?

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html#updating-lists

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html#minimal-upgrade

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html#upgrading-full

`apt` is named as the primary tool and the example command lines use
it; `apt-get` is mentioned in a couple of corresponding notes,
particularly with regards to its benefits when used from scripts.

--
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

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On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:03:02 +0200
Hans <hans.ullrich@loop.de> wrote:

Dear list,

over the many years we got different tools for upgrading debian in
the commandline. These tools behave differently and also we get
different results, when eecuting.

First, we have the oldest, whcih is apt-get.
apt-get update, apt-get upgrade or apt-get full-upgrade does a good
job.

However, we also have aptitude, but
aptitude update, aptitude upgrade and aptitude full-upgrade are doing
also a good job, but not the same as apt-get does. Also it looks,
aptitude update loads its own list and is not using the list from
apt-get (otherwise it could not explain, why aptitude and apt-get
every time reloads the new list, when one of the other was eecuted
before). Also the dependencies in both tools are handled different.

I believe they use different cache structures, and if tool A has been
used since tool B was last used, next time tool B is used it will not
know what has been upgraded while it has 'been away', and will refresh
its own cache.

And at last, we have apt, which (as far as I now), soemtimes is
calling apt- get, and sometimes is calling aptitude.

This is somehow rather irritating!

So, my question is: Which one is recommended, when updating and
upgrading is used in a script, so that it causes as little as
possible pain?

It means: When the script is not eecuted daily, but let us say, every
two weeks, and we have lots of packages.

At the moment I am using aptitude, this works great in short periods,
but after al longer time, it crashes, because some dependencies could
not resolve.

Independent of my personal use: Which one is recommended?

I believe apt is currently recommended. Having said that, sometimes the
upgrade notes for a new Stable recommend using a particular tool, and
obviously you would go with that advice. I seem to recall that apt will
not just use one of the earlier upgrade tools, but will do a bit of
tidying up afterwards. With the earlier tools, the package cache has to
be manually cleared periodically.

My experience of apt-get and aptitude is that aptitude has a better
resolver and will often clear a medium-sized pile of packages when
apt-get won't. However, it achieves this improved performance at the
expense of speed and simplicity. If you run Unstable, especially, and
leave upgrading too long, aptitude can be overwhelmed by several hundred packages to organise, and will apparently just hang. Aptitude should be
fine on Stable, which should never have more than about a dozen
packages upgradable, unless you leave it for many months. I'd still use
apt.

--
Joe

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On 28/8/24 03:03, Hans wrote:

Dear list,

over the many years we got different tools for upgrading debian in the commandline. These tools behave differently and also we get different results,
when eecuting.

First, we have the oldest, whcih is apt-get.
apt-get update, apt-get upgrade or apt-get full-upgrade does a good job.

However, we also have aptitude, but
aptitude update, aptitude upgrade and aptitude full-upgrade are doing also a good job, but not the same as apt-get does. Also it looks, aptitude update loads its own list and is not using the list from apt-get (otherwise it could not explain, why aptitude and apt-get every time reloads the new list, when one of the other was eecuted before). Also the dependencies in both tools are handled different.

And at last, we have apt, which (as far as I now), soemtimes is calling apt- get, and sometimes is calling aptitude.

This is somehow rather irritating!

So, my question is: Which one is recommended, when updating and upgrading is used in a script, so that it causes as little as possible pain?

It means: When the script is not eecuted daily, but let us say, every two weeks, and we have lots of packages.

At the moment I am using aptitude, this works great in short periods, but after al longer time, it crashes, because some dependencies could not resolve.

Independent of my personal use: Which one is recommended?

Thanks for reading. Short answer will be ok.

Best

Hans

apt update && apt full-upgrade -y && apt autoremove -y && apt autoclean

Simple.

..
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............

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Hi,

On Wed, Aug 28, 2024 at 04:25:20AM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:

On 28/8/24 03:03, Hans wrote:

So, my question is: Which one is recommended, when updating and upgrading is
used in a script, so that it causes as little as possible pain?

[…]

apt update && apt full-upgrade -y && apt autoremove -y && apt autoclean

"apt" will say when it is used in a script that its user interface
is not yet stable (i.e. its output could change at any time) so it
should not be used in scripts.

Other replies have already covered the correct answer for
non-interactive use.

Thanks,
Andy

--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

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On Tue 27 Aug 2024 at 20:32:04 (+0100), Joe wrote:

On Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:03:02 +0200 Hans wrote:

First, we have the oldest, whcih is apt-get.
apt-get update, apt-get upgrade or apt-get full-upgrade does a good
job.

So, my question is: Which one is recommended, when updating and
upgrading is used in a script, so that it causes as little as
possible pain?

It means: When the script is not eecuted daily, but let us say, every
two weeks, and we have lots of packages.

At the moment I am using aptitude, this works great in short periods,
but after al longer time, it crashes, because some dependencies could
not resolve.

Independent of my personal use: Which one is recommended?

For scripts, apt-get has the advantage that it doesn't get changed
from release to release, but always behaves the same way.

I believe apt is currently recommended. Having said that, sometimes the upgrade notes for a new Stable recommend using a particular tool, and obviously you would go with that advice. I seem to recall that apt will
not just use one of the earlier upgrade tools, but will do a bit of
tidying up afterwards. With the earlier tools, the package cache has to
be manually cleared periodically.

For upgrading one release to another, apt is currently recommended,
but I think it's assumed that you do this by typing the commands
rather than just running a script, so you can check for success at
each step.

My experience of apt-get and aptitude is that aptitude has a better
resolver and will often clear a medium-sized pile of packages when
apt-get won't. However, it achieves this improved performance at the
expense of speed and simplicity. If you run Unstable, especially, and
leave upgrading too long, aptitude can be overwhelmed by several hundred packages to organise, and will apparently just hang. Aptitude should be
fine on Stable, which should never have more than about a dozen
packages upgradable, unless you leave it for many months. I'd still use
apt.

With anything up to stable, I've never had a problem using apt-get.
For example, last week I upgraded a buster (oldoldstable) system that
was last upgraded in early March. A mere 171 packages with one command.

But sure, for testing and beyond, the quirks in the resolvers will
make a difference as there are more packages to upgrade and not even
a guarantee that the distribution is complete.

Cheers,
David.

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See also
Debian Reference
Chapter 2. Debian package management
2.2.1. apt vs. apt-get / apt-cache vs. aptitude

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_literal_apt_literal_vs_literal_apt_get_literal_literal_apt_cache_literal_vs_literal_aptitude_literal

Regards,
Jörg.

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