Beyond Synaptic - using apt for better package management
Submitted by srlinuxx on Thu, 04/03/2008 - 00:14.
I’m a Debian user and—like many—I use apt and its associated tools. If you haven’t yet discovered apt here’s a brief summary of some of it and some of its tools which can make your package management even more powerful.
One of the advantages of apt is the repository management. Like most packaging systems, apt uses its repositories to find and retrieve packages. The way in which repositories are organised aids greatly with dependencies—where one package depends upon another in order to work properly. Apt repositories also make recommendations and suggestions of other packages which might prove useful. These are not dependencies as the original package will run without them but sometimes what you might think of as a dependency will be a recommendation because there is a choice involved. Debian policy is not to dictate.
Because of the nature of these tools the user running them needs certain privileges. Usually this would be done with sudo or—if you are confident—as root.
Beyond Synaptic front end, is the web auto-update vs. Repo ?
Apt-get is jsut the package system with all its options.
Synaptic is the search engine front end for new applications and operating system updates. Currently synaptic for many distros introduces to a repository where software maybe found(even tho dependencies may be missing; typical in the Debian world).
Some paid distros(ThisLinux, HongKong; Chinese language version limited to kernel 2.4.x) uses synaptic for operating system fixes. When you are connected to the web, then synaptic gets ThisLinux and downloads the fixes and installs them. It is almost like a subscription to Microsoft auto-update or CnR warehouse with its thousands of applications for click and run. In either case, apt-get options are prescribed, and why bother? Automation gets rid of many options not needed.
In the end, auto-update will be the key to virtual administrator, built in each distro. For open sourced community, this is too much regulation; some fool will spoil synaptic?