Paul Gevers <
elbrus@debian.org> writes:
Hi,
[Release Team member hat on]
no hats here, but wanted to agree
On 27-04-2024 11:48 p.m., Manny wrote:
As an aptitude user, I was bothered by the lack of aptitude ways of
doing things in the upgrade guide.
I anything, I prefer the Release Notes to move to using one tool in
the instructions, without insinuating that it's the only way. I think
that tool should be apt nowadays. We've made steps in that direction
during the last release cycle, i.e. we moved away from aptitude.
I agree. i myself use aptitude for upgrading to stable - it's a lot more
work than using apt, and I dont think it is suitable approach for new
users. (eg i am not sure that "aptitude safe-upgade" is actually
entirely equivalent to the first stage of apt, in some subtle ways).
I definitely dont want the release-notes to list every single possibile
way of doing things. It would make everything seem more complicated and
be very confusing - and need a lot of maintenance: i think that the release-notes already try to do too much in some places.
Debian should be recomending a way to do things in a simple way that
will work. Advanced users can always do their own thing, but the
official release-notes should be simple -- it also helps people who want
to do their own thing if "the official thing" is clearly documented.
So I think release-notes should only use apt, with a brief note that
says that other front-ends like aptitude, synaptic are avialable. The developers and users of those tools can write their own guide, if they
want, which could be linked to.
If the guide is intended to help train the user and advance their
Debian skills, then the CLI advice is probably favorable because it’s
more likely to improve the user’s knowledge than a UI that needs no
manual.
That's not the purpose of the Release Notes.
(is there a case to think of something like this as a secondary
objective?, one to be kept in mind where possible, and only where it
doesnt conflict with a clear, short document. either way, documenting objectives would help contributors)
As an aptitude user, my temptation is to look for the aptitude
approach. So merely omitting aptitude from the guide only encumbers
aptitude users. If there is a good reason for omitting an aptitude
approach, the guide should state why. Otherwise users might question
the quality and comprehensiveness of the guide.
We could add a statement that while more tools exist. All automated
testing of upgrades that I know of use apt-get, so that's the obvious
choice. aptitude doesn't get as much testing.
i fear aptitude is mostly bugfix-only, whereas apt is actively
maintained with new features.
I really like the text interface in aptitude as it makes it easier to
track manual/automatic status and helps when you have complex
requirements like "install diffoscope-minimal but only some all its ~1GB
of transitive recommends" - but when I just want "the default" (the vast majority of the time!), it doesnt actually add much over apt.
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