[NBLUG/talk] Re: talk Digest, Vol 20, Issue 28

Art Hampton art.hampton at gmail.com
Tue Nov 29 15:56:22 PST 2005


This discussion of Aptitude is just about a perfect example of why I'm
typing this from W2K.

Don't get me wrong, I take delight in geeking around with the various OSes,
and I'd love to not further line Bill's pockets, but sometimes I just want
to use an application and not fool around with a command line or have
unexpected things happening.

Criminy. I installed Slackware and attempted to access my cdrom. I'm told
that only root can open the cdrom. OK, so I log on as root and attempt to
change the permissions to allow the lowly user (me) to open the cdrom, and I
can't figure out how to do it. I suppose I could, actually. I can program in
C, and I did manage to somehow stumble through college, but this is just too
much effort to be able to open the GD cdrom. Give me strength, or better
yet, W2K.

I suppose I'd best put on my flame retardant outfit...

Art Hampton

I'm using Slackware because for my taste Ubuntu has turned into too much of
a resource hog.

On 11/29/05, talk-request at nblug.org <talk-request at nblug.org> wrote:
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Ubuntu (A'fish'ionado)
>    2. Re: Ubuntu (E Frank Ball)
>    3. Re: Ubuntu (Stephen Cilley)
>    4. Re: Ubuntu (Troy Arnold)
>    5. Re: Ubuntu (Troy Arnold)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:00:56 -0800
> From: A'fish'ionado <afishionado at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [NBLUG/talk] Ubuntu
> To: "General NBLUG chatter about anything Linux, answers to questions,
>         etc." <talk at nblug.org>
> Message-ID:
>         <af8b40ce0511281200t2015eac8x56ac2c6eee250d37 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> > Ahh, you should play around with using aptitude as a straight apt-get
> > replacement:
> > aptitude install foo
> > aptitude update; apt-get upgrade
>
>
> See?  I'm already learning something new about Debian. ;-)
>
> William
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 17:47:46 -0800
> From: E Frank Ball <frankb at frankb.us>
> Subject: Re: [NBLUG/talk] Ubuntu
> To: "General NBLUG chatter about anything Linux, answers to questions,
>         etc." <talk at nblug.org>
> Message-ID: <20051129014746.GC1979 at kamajii.efball.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 10:24:11PM -0800, Troy Arnold wrote:
> }
> } Ahh, you should play around with using aptitude as a straight apt-get
> } replacement:
> } aptitude install foo
> } aptitude update; apt-get upgrade
> }
> } Its dependency handling is better for one.  Say you 'aptitude install
> } packageA' while pulls in packages B,C and D.  If you later 'aptitude
> } remove packageA' B, C, and D are gone also.  There's also some very cool
> } stuff in Sid WRT to conflict handling.  Aptitude will actually suggest
> } several different ways of handling a given dependency situation.
>
> So as per your advice I tried using aptitude instead of apt-get to
> install a package, and I get this:
>
> The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
>   bzip2 docbook-xml lesstif1 libperl5.8 libscrollkeeper0 libvte-common
>   libvte4 libxslt1.1 scrollkeeper sgml-data synaptic vim vim-common
>   xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalable xserver-common
> xserver-xfree86
>
> What the F????
>
> I want bzip2.  I need lesstif1 for something I compiled.
> synaptic is a nice gui for browsing and installing packages.
> I can't live without vim, and the xserver is running!
>
> apt-get install worked fine and didn't remove anything.
> What am I doing wrong?
>
> --
>
>    E Frank Ball                frankb at frankb.us
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:17:33 -0800 (PST)
> From: Stephen Cilley <hydro_mancer at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [NBLUG/talk] Ubuntu
> To: "General NBLUG chatter about anything Linux, answers to questions,
>         etc." <talk at nblug.org>
> Message-ID: <20051129081733.4636.qmail at web34311.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> I can't say in particular, but one of the things as a
> complete newbie I find myself asking over and over
> again is, what's the REAL difference between all of
> these distros.  I realize that that's probably the
> whole point of the round table, but I'm afraid I'll
> get the same answers I've been getting: too general
> and vague, stuff like, "It's great for media and it's
> really low overhead."  That's not really enough for me
> to get any kind of a real tangible understanding of
> what makes the operating system so good.
> So, in short, this is my one request: I'd like to SEE
> all of the key differences demonstrated on the screen.
> I'd really appreciate a petting zoo after everybody
> is done speaking; it'd be cool to be able to have
> access to 10 different laptops afterward all with a
> different distro.
> Anyway, I realize that's not terribly specific.
> Sorry.
> Thank you,
> Stephen
>
>
>
> > Yes, it would.  We're anticipating being able to
> > take questions and/or
> > demo interesting things.  So folks, if there are
> > things you'd like to
> > know about Distro X or something in particular you'd
> > like to see demo'd,
> > please speak up now or be prepared to speak up at
> > the meeting.
> >
> > -troy
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > talk mailing list
> > talk at nblug.org
> > http://nblug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 01:22:07 -0800
> From: Troy Arnold <troy at zenux.net>
> Subject: Re: [NBLUG/talk] Ubuntu
> To: frankb at frankb.us,   "General NBLUG chatter about anything Linux,
>         answers to questions,   etc." <talk at nblug.org>
> Message-ID: <20051129092206.GA18524 at zenux.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 05:47:46PM -0800, E Frank Ball wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 10:24:11PM -0800, Troy Arnold wrote:
> > }
> > } Ahh, you should play around with using aptitude as a straight apt-get
> > } replacement:
> > } aptitude install foo
> > } aptitude update; apt-get upgrade
> > }
> > } Its dependency handling is better for one.  Say you 'aptitude install
> > } packageA' while pulls in packages B,C and D.  If you later 'aptitude
> > } remove packageA' B, C, and D are gone also.  There's also some very
> cool
> > } stuff in Sid WRT to conflict handling.  Aptitude will actually suggest
> > } several different ways of handling a given dependency situation.
> >
> > So as per your advice I tried using aptitude instead of apt-get to
> > install a package, and I get this:
> >
> > The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
> >   bzip2 docbook-xml lesstif1 libperl5.8 libscrollkeeper0 libvte-common
> >   libvte4 libxslt1.1 scrollkeeper sgml-data synaptic vim vim-common
> >   xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalable xserver-common
> xserver-xfree86
> >
> > What the F????
> >
> > I want bzip2.  I need lesstif1 for something I compiled.
> > synaptic is a nice gui for browsing and installing packages.
> > I can't live without vim, and the xserver is running!
> >
> > apt-get install worked fine and didn't remove anything.
> > What am I doing wrong?
>
> Ahh.  When you use aptitude to install packageFoo and packageFoo depends
> on libFoo then libFoo will be marked as 'Auto installed'  This way, when
> you remove 'packageFoo' then libFoo will automatically be removed.
> Kinda like a built-in deborphan if you've used that.  The thing is,
> aptitude doesn't have this meta-data about packages installed via other
> methods.
>
> One way around this would be to tell aptitude that your other stuff was
> NOT automatically installed:
> aptitude unmarkauto '~i'
>
> '~i' is a search pattern meaning all installed packages
>
> (Aptitude search patterns are very similar to those of Mutt)
> Here's a copy of the aptitude manual:
> http://doc2.inf.elte.hu/doc/aptitude/html/en/ch02.html
>
> You might find the -s flag handy, it tells aptitude to simulate actions
> without actually changing anything.  Also nice, is that you can run
> aptitude as a regular user, at least until you actually have it DO
> something.
>
> Trying not to sound like an aptitude salesman, I'll just say that its
> benefits become more apparent over time (as it becomes better aware of
> your
> package installation history) and as you become more familiar with its
> advanced searching features.
>
>
> -troy
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 01:47:01 -0800
> From: Troy Arnold <troy at zenux.net>
> Subject: Re: [NBLUG/talk] Ubuntu
> To: "General NBLUG chatter about anything Linux, answers to questions,
>         etc." <talk at nblug.org>
> Message-ID: <20051129094701.GB18524 at zenux.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2005 at 12:17:33AM -0800, Stephen Cilley wrote:
> > I can't say in particular, but one of the things as a
> > complete newbie I find myself asking over and over
> > again is, what's the REAL difference between all of
> > these distros.  I realize that that's probably the
> > whole point of the round table, but I'm afraid I'll
> > get the same answers I've been getting: too general
> > and vague, stuff like, "It's great for media and it's
> > really low overhead."
>
> Well, we're covering quite the mix of distributions, and they're all
> definitely geared to their own subset of users...so you'll get at least
> some answers.
>
> > So, in short, this is my one request: I'd like to SEE
> > all of the key differences demonstrated on the screen.
> >  I'd really appreciate a petting zoo after everybody
> > is done speaking; it'd be cool to be able to have
> > access to 10 different laptops afterward all with a
> > different distro.
>
> Aaron (who is covering Gentoo) suggested hands on  also.  Logistically
> it would be tough though, because of the fact that the alarms at
> O'Reilly will go off if we don't get out of there on time.  But I'll see
> what the rest of the panel thinks.   I'll also see what people think
> about having a few demo machines setup at the next installfest.
>
> > Anyway, I realize that's not terribly specific.
> > Sorry.
>
> No, this is very helpful. Really.  Thanks for the input :)
>
> -troy
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
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> talk at nblug.org
> http://nblug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>
> End of talk Digest, Vol 20, Issue 28
> ************************************
>
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