i would like to find information on apt, apt-get, apt install, wget etc

all the commands that a person would use to deal with software

any wed pages would be great

Go to the source

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ap.../index.en.html

This covers most things

apt-get install * (name of the software)
apt-get remove *
apt-cache search *
apt-get update (updates the sofware list from the server)
apt-cache upgrade (upgrades everything)
I suggest that you set the software from the servers to unstable, I never had any problems with them as "unstable".

For a simple approach to the process apt-get install synaptic. It provides a nice gui for apt.

OK, how do I uninstall something but ignoring any dependencies? I'm trying to excise inetd (and replace it with xinetd) from my machine but don't want to remove the half-dozen packages that are dependent on it (and should work just as easily as with xinetd as they did with inetd).

That's the only way to run Debian really. I swear some of the packages in "Stable" are so old the Debian developers had to go to archeological sites in order to find them.

Well I think its possible, but.....

The thing is these programs are linked with inetd and even with xinetd installed they probably wouldn't use it anyway.

Dependency on inetd for basic networking is quite universal, as they know that it will probably be available, where xinetd might not.

Just because its available doesn't mean the program would be used. Thats what dpendancy checks are all about.

Also this may destroy your SYSTEM!!!!!! as somethings may go down as a side effect.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

go into your conf file for apt and add

RPM
{
Fake-Provides {"inetd version";};
}

Replace version with your version of inetd, then remove it.

You may have to remove inetd first and its dependancies. then reinstall them after adding the above. Remember by default apt-get leaves all configuration files as they are, and won't remove them.

But as I said they probably won't work as they will still be looking for inetd.

Or you can just have inetd installed and not run anything and then install xinetd alongside it (it's available in Deb), actually running the things you want. I don't see any problems with this setup, but I do see a lot of problems with circumventing the dependency system.

I ended up using update-rc.d (is there a better tool for this? Something more like Red Hat's ntsysv?) to disable inetd and install xinetd as the default Internet superserver. It was either that, or reformat it and install Slackware on it again. I'm still considering that as I've since learned of a tool that gives Slack Debian/Gentoo style package management but I'd have to hook floppy and CD drives back up to it againif I wanted to do that and I don't know if I can really be bothered. I swear, Debian's almost as bad as Red Hat when it comes to annoying dependency issues...