apt-get vs aptitude?

[scottmac112]

Hey All:

I was wondering what the difference is between apt-get and aptitude. I use aptitude and it works alright. Same for apt-get. But I'm just wondering what the difference is between the two commands.:confused:

[blackened]

Decent thread on the subject here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/apt-get-vs.-aptitude-363365/.

[forkandles]

This article is worth a read as well.

http://pthree.org/2007/08/12/aptitude-vs-apt-get/

[xadder]

Interesting points in that link, and I wouldn't like to remember all the apt-xxx variants. Still, I just use synaptic - and that's great!

[unutbu]

In http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Debian/2007-11/msg00090.html the author of aptitude, Daniel Burrows, wrote


aptitude shouldn't wipe out packages installed with apt-get, period
full stop.

Let's think about what this implies. Suppose package A depends on package B.
Suppose you install B with aptitude, and A with apt-get.

If you try to remove B using aptitude, then it will either

1) refuse to remove B because by policy it can not remove A, or
2) will remove B but leave A alone. A is now a broken package.

Either case is undesirable.

The conclusion, it seems to me, is that you can use aptitude, or you can use apt-get, but you should not mix the two.

Here are some more interesting threads on this topic.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=379804
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=727077

Be aware of the dates of posts that your read. apt-get used to be criticized because it did not have an autoremove feature. Now it does. aptitude has been criticized for autoremoving too much. See http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4533599&postcount=14.
I don't know if this is still a problem. For what it's worth, I use apt-get.