Linux Package Manager Command Line Comparison

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman_Rosetta

by denysonique • 14 years ago

71 31 14 years ago

wiki.archlinux.org

klodolph2• 14 years ago

Someone should mention package manager performance. Searching for a package in an Arch system will take a long time (10s or more) except on relatively fresh installs. It may have been fixed by now, but it was a serious point of irritation.

Avshalom• 14 years ago

Were you using XFS at the time? Search has never been a problem for me even on multi year old installs, but there was (is?) something about XFS that made pacman slow to a crawl.

klodolph2• 14 years ago

Nope. The problem happened on multiple systems (i386, x64) regardless of filesystem (ext3, reiser), although problems only start after a few months. I found a bug in the bug tracker for it with multiple people confirming it and the "solution" was to wipe the package database manually every once in a while.

mziulu• 14 years ago

In case someone else finds himself hitting this performance slowdown, try this: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=32483

lclarkmichalek• 14 years ago

Personally I use the zsh completion for pacman over pacman -S as it is much faster

clhodapp• 14 years ago

Running pacman-optimize (part of the base pacman package) occasionally keeps the performance at an acceptable level for me.

nodata• 14 years ago

The yum stuff is missing parts...

Use some magic to fix broken dependencies in a system: yum distro-sync or yum check and decide.

Remove dependencies that are no longer needed: package-cleanup --orphans

Downloads the corresponding source package(s) to the given package name(s): yumdownloader --source PACKAGENAME

etc.

l0nk• 14 years ago

If you think something is missing feel free to add it =)

And regarding the speed, well I got a server under Archlinux et another one under Debian, they have the same age (around 1 year ago, when squeeze come out) and pacman is more more quicker!

g3orge• 14 years ago

I was waiting something like that for a long time.

nicktelford3• 14 years ago

I can't believe there are Debian/Ubuntu folks still not using "aptitude". Or that it's not installed by default.

Mavrik• 14 years ago

I've been using Ubuntu with apt-get for quite a few years now. What additional funcionality does aptitude offer over "plain" apt-get?

nicktelford3• 14 years ago

The biggest advantage is when removing packages; its dependency resolution is (supposedly) much better so it's able to find and remove orphan packages more accurately without hosing your system.

It's also got a much friendlier set of commands:

  $ apt-get upgrade vim # aptitude upgrade vim

  $ apt-get dist-upgrade # aptitude full-upgrade

  $ apt-cache search # aptitude search

  $ apt-get install --reinstall vim # aptitude reinstall vim

  $ apt-get remove --purge vim # aptitude purge vim

The list goes on.

It's also got an awesome ncurses based interactive interface if you just type:

  $ aptitude

Great for sysadmins who miss synaptic or anyone who feels like a GUI is just too mainstream.

JoshTriplett• 14 years ago

Aptitude has an optional screen-oriented GUI, much better search and filtering capabilities, a listing of "new" packages each time you update, and an excellent dependency resolver.

obtu2• 14 years ago

My favourite feature is the search capabilities, which are well integrated and extremely powerful.

    # installed packages with yaml in the name
    aptitude search '~i yaml'

    # installed packages requiring yaml
    # (~D means depends on)
    aptitude search '~i ~D yaml'

    # packages whose name starts with lib and
    # mentioning SQL in their descriptions
    aptitude search '^lib ~d sql'

    # installed packages from some non-standard repo
    # apt-cache policy describes package origins
    aptitude search '~i ?origin(apt.opscode.com)'

    # why is libvirt0 installed?
    aptitude why libvirt0

    # which ubuntu metapackage is keeping libvirt0 installed?
    aptitude why '~i ubun' libvirt0 

    # don't keep any transitional package installed
    sudo aptitude markauto '~i ~d transitional'

    # purge ganeti packages
    sudo aptitude purge '~i ganeti'

obtu2• 14 years ago

On Debian, I definitely use aptitude. However it hasn't been updated for Ubuntu's recent work on multiarch, and thus actions requiring dependency resolution are not usable anymore on many Oneiric installs (those that are amd64 with a few i586 packages).

sciurus3• 14 years ago

I think there's a perception that aptitude can be to smart for its own good. From the Debian Reference:

"Although the aptitude command comes with rich features such as its enhanced package resolver, this complexity has caused (or may still causes) some regressions such as Bug #411123, Bug #514930, and Bug #570377. In case of doubt, please use the apt-get and apt-cache commands over the aptitude command."

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.h...

jff• 14 years ago

I ran "aptitude dist-upgrade" on my netbook once.

It ate up the entire 1 GB of RAM and got OOM killed before it could finish computing dependencies.

I shouldn't need a swap partition just to update packages. So now I use apt-get if I'm upgrading a lot of packages at once. aptitude for other tasks.

bradleyland• 14 years ago

Most Debian/Ubuntu admins I know use aptitude these days, rather than apt-<tool> directly.

pavelkaroukin• 14 years ago

Could you please elaborate or give a link to article(s) about why aptitude is better?

monkeyfacebag• 14 years ago

Aptitude handles package removal, especially orphaned dependencies much better. I think it's now included in the Debian base system, so there's very little reason to prefer apt.

phunehehe• 14 years ago

Hah! So there is something on the front page of HN that I have referred to for years :)

virtualritz• 14 years ago

Critically misses the most advanced package manager currently available: Paludis. http://paludis.exherbo.org/

Linux Package Manager Command Line Comparison

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