time setting in debian

[David Bandel]

On 2/24/06, Collins Richey <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/24/06, David Bandel <david.bandel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [ snips ]
> > upgrade will upgrade packages that need no
> > interaction and whose upgrade is benign.  This can be done without
> > fear automagically.
> >
> > dist-upgrade upgrades _all_ packages that can be upgraded, including
> > those that require a response to questions and/or might cause problems
> > (like a glibc upgrade that requires you to stop and restart services,
> > etc.).  Kernel upgrades are usually dist-upgrade packages.
> >
>
> Ah, light bulb goes on. Thanks for clearing that up, David. So, the
> question is how would you know/learn/discover that you have packages
> waiting to be dist-upgraded, or can you even discover that?

a number of utilities, starting w/ dpkg itself (which can tell you a
lot), to dselect (takes getting used to, but is _very_ powerful), to
things like apt-show-versions, apt-cache, apt-file, apt-show-sources,
apt-listbugs, and more (there are man pages for all).

Then there's cron-apt, and an upgrade-system (which will uninstall
"junk" -- obsolete libraries, etc.).

>
> I'm still such a babe in the woods when in comes to debian.

I've been using Debian for over 12 years and I still learn stuff about
it (in my case, RTFM comes to mind, but I don't have time to read the
instructions any more).

>
> >
> > aptitude is the worst package manager I've ever seen and I still can't
> > figure it out.  Personally, I use dselect (but then, I've used it for
> > so many years it's second nature) or use dpkg directly.
> >
>
> Also interesting to know. apt-get has served me well thus far. My only
> real gripe is that it isn't a complete tool like rpm (not that I am an
> rpm fan!). You have to dig around and google to learn how to display
> available and installed packages, for example.

please give dselect a try.  Hint, read the navigation screen.  I use /
and \ a lot.  You can see installed and available versions, stuff
that's not configured, not installed, broken, obsolete, etc.

- means remove the package only
_ means purge all (including config files which are not removed with - )
and = means don't upgrade (in cases where you know the upgrade is broken)

dpkg is more powerful, but takes a _lot_ of getting used to.  But it
can usually fix even completely hosed systems if you know how to
--force-[things].  You can even break your system beyond all repair
with it if you try hard enough!

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
--
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
            - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto