[SGVLUG] aptitude vs apt-get - informative article

[Matthew Campbell]

That is an interesting article as it parallels a problem I am facing.  I
wonder if yum also has the functionality of being able to freeze the level
of an installed package and can manage multiple versions of the same
package.

I have a series of websites that I manage.  They depend on php 5.2.  Php 5.3
was released last month and the shared hosting ISP dutifully upgraded.  The
underlying software running the sites broke in a big way.

It has been a month.  I figured that the software maintainers would update
their tools to stay compatible.  Unfortunately their mindset is that the php
guys broke the language and hell if they will change all their software.
They will let all the sites break until enough people complain and the php
guys roll back the upgrade.

This sort of sucks being me.

A solution was put forward to downgrade php on the shared service, something
that is just not in the stars.

Does anyone have experience installing multiple versions of php on a CentOS
or RH5 box?  Yum only works with the most recent version by default.  I was
not able to find a solution Friday.  Monday I'll do some more in depth
Googling to see if there's an answer out there, but advice would  be
appreciated.

Matt

On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 8:19 AM, Robert Leyva <mrflash818 at geophile.net>wrote:

> If you are a debian person, this is why using aptitude instead of apt-get
> is the recommended course of action. Excerpts from the article:
>
> "...
>
> Further more, apt-get has a big problem that hasn’t really been addressed
> until only just recently. The problem is in removing packages. You see,
> apt-get does a great job of indentifying what dependencies need to be
> installed when you want a certain package, but it fails miserably when you
> want to remove that package. If dependencies were required, ‘apt-get
> remove’ will remove your packages, but leave orphaned dependencies on your
> system. Psychocats.net has a great writeup on this very phenomenon, by
> simply installing and removing the package kword. The solution? Aptitude.
>
> ...
>
> Aptitude is the superior way to install, remove, upgrade, and otherwise
> administer packages on you system with apt. For one, since it’s inception,
> aptitude has been solving orphaned dependencies. Second, it has a curses
> interface that blows the doors off of dselect. Finally, and most
> importantly, it takes advantage of one tool, doing many many functions.
> Let’s take a look:
>
>    * aptitude: Running it with no arguments brings up a beautiful
> interface to search, navigate, install, update and otherwise
> administer packages.
>    * aptitude install: Installing software for your system, installing
> needed dependencies as well.
>    * aptitude remove: Removing packages as well as orphaned dependencies.
>    * aptitude purge: Removing packages and orphaned dependencies as well
> as any configuration files left behind.
>    * aptitude search: Search for packages in the local apt package lists.
>    * aptitude update: Update the local packages lists.
>    * aptitude upgrade: Upgrade any installed packages that have been
> updated.
>    * aptitude clean: Delete any downloaded files necessary for installing
> the software on your system.
>    * aptitude dist-upgrade: Upgrade packages, even if it means
> uninstalling certain packages.
>    * aptitude show: Show details about a package name.
>    * aptitude autoclean: Delete only out-of-date packages, but keep
> current ones.
>    * aptitude hold: Fix a package at it’s current version, and don’t
> update it
>
> ...
> "
> http://pthree.org/2007/08/12/aptitude-vs-apt-get/
>
> Me
> --
> "Knowledge is Power" -- Francis Bacon
>
> Robert Leyva
> mrflash818 at geophile.net
>
>
>


-- 
Matthew Campbell | Chief Technical Officer
Imagination Games
3330 Cahuenga Blvd. West #505
Los Angeles, CA  90068
818.314.9897 (M)
matt.campbell at imaginationgames.com
www.imaginationgames.com
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