Apt & aptitude only download from repos. Wget downloads files from URLs.
And I've never heard of "aptitude-get". You can either "aptitude install ..." or "apt-get install ...". But aptitude sometimes has problems. With apt I never had problems.

Have no idea why Debian developers recommend using aptitude.

Oh i see.
i have never use aptitude before. only use apt-get hahas(:

apt-get will happily remove critical packages without asking, aptitude won't.

I am sure there must be an option to prevent this...

I think it's worth mentioning that aptitude is the preferred choice for upgrading from one release to the next.

Maybe for you. I've typically seen recommended. I've never done a dist-upgrade, but if I did that's the method I'd prefer.

Both will have a y/n option any time you do anything.


Aptitude still duplicates some APT/dpkg features. Its resolver can sometimes produce unexpected results.
It also has many more frontend-specific bugs. Despite the slogan, it is quite heavy, in part due to the mix of several front-ends in
a single binary package and duplication. The curses-based frontend is more memory intensive and slower than apt-get.

aptitude has more advanced conflict/dependency resolution and will often find a solution where apt-get gives up.
It can be used from the command line like apt-get plus an interactive resolver makes it much easier to recover from broken dependencies. It has advanced search capabilities. aptitude search is a powerful searching facility that by default only searches package names, but can be made to search priorities,
installation status, dependencies etc.
See /usr/share/doc/aptitude/html/en/ch02s03.html from the aptitude-doc package or http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/...n/ch02s03.html

See Aptitude - Debian Wiki http://wiki.debian.org/Aptitude for a comparison between aptitude and apt-get commands. As well as
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/re...ent_operations

No.
Aptitude is the recommended application from Debian,here's a quote from the Lenny release notes:

Taken from the Lenny release notes here:

http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...en.html#backup

The word preferred implies a personal preference.

1 members found this post helpful.

It's not just my preference is it.
Debian recommend aptitude,so that's what I use, I don't bother with the ncurses interface either.
Also Debian have suggested using aptitude over apt-get since the release of Etch!.


I have.
From Lenny to Squeeze/Testing on several machines without problems using aptitude.
FYI that command is deprecated now for full-upgrade.

I have always used apt-get dist-upgrade, but I also run sid. never ran stable or testing.

You really want to argue semantics don't you? The fact is you said preferred. Had you said something along the lines of "officially recommended" there would be no argument.

I "prefer" apt-get. I personally would recommend it. I'd recommend any console program over it's GUI counterpart (assuming they're both available) for one simple reason: if your GUI fails or you need to do something remotely and you're stuck at a console, it's nice to know what you're doing.

Another reason I would prefer a console over a gui is that frequently there are more options available thru command line parameters that are not made available in a GUI.

Finally, when making major changes to a system, I've always found it best to have the smallest possible amount of things running. This means single user mode.

Basically, make the command line your friend.

If there is a point to be made yes.
As regards to preferred,that's why I posted the link and quote from the Lenny release notes.
So yes you can take it as "offically recommended".Are you happy now?.
In future I will write it as such,so that people like you don't start pointless debates like this.

Who said anything about running aptitude with a gui?
You can use it just fine from the cli just like apt-get.
Here is a quote from my previous post that you seem incapable of reading or understanding:

Again,what gui are you talking about?

Yes.Agree completely.

When I install Debian I use the net-install disc.
I don't check the desktop option,just install the minimal system.
So you then reboot into a command prompt and use aptitude to install the system from there.
All command line,no gui until you install X and a window manager.

Great! I'm happy for you.
Obviously you know better than Debian.
It's your machine,you administer it whichever way suits.

You're both right. I'm sure I've read somewhere that Ubuntu recommend using apt-get, whereas Debian recommend aptitude.

Yes,I'd say so.
When I see people saying "sudo apt-get <package>" with Debian,it makes me cringe!