#
aptitude markauto ’~slibs|~sperl’
Here, you can clearly see the power of the search pattern system of
aptitude
, which
enables the instant selection of all the packages in the
libs
and
perl
sections.
Beware, if some packages are marked as automatic and if no other package depends
on them, they will be removed immediately (after a confirmation request).
Managing Recommendations, Suggestions, and Tasks Another interesting feature of
aptitude
is the fact that it respects recommendations between packages while still giving users
the choice not to install them on a case-by-case basis. For example, the
gnome package recom-
mends
gdebi (among others). When you select the former for installation, the latter will also be
selected (and marked as automatic if not already installed on the system). Typing g will make it
obvious:
gdebi appears on the summary screen of pending actions in the list of packages installed
automatically to satisfy dependencies. However, you can decide not to install it by deselecting it
before confirming the operations.
Note that this recommendation tracking feature does not apply to upgrades. For instance, if a new
version of
gnome recommends a package that it did not recommend formerly, the package won’t be
marked for installation. However, it will be listed on the upgrade screen so that the administrator
can still select it for installation.
Suggestions between packages are also taken into account, but in a manner adapted to their spe-
cific status. For example, since
gnome suggests
dia-gnome, the latter will be displayed on the sum-
mary screen of pending actions (in the section of packages suggested by other packages). This
way, it is visible and the administrator can decide whether to take the suggestion into account or
not. Since it is only a suggestion and not a dependency or a recommendation, the package will
not be selected automatically—its selection requires manual intervention (thus, the package will
not be marked as automatic).
In the same spirit, remember that
aptitude
makes intelligent use of the concept of tasks. Since
tasks are displayed as categories in the screens of packages lists, you can either select a full task
for installation or removal or browse the list of packages included in the task to select a smaller
subset.
