APTITUDE(8) Command-line reference APTITUDE(8)
NAME
aptitude - high-level interface to the package manager
SYNOPSIS
aptitude [...] {autoclean | clean | forget-new | keep-all | update}
aptitude [...] {full-upgrade | safe-upgrade} [...]
aptitude [...] {build-dep | build-depends | changelog | download | forbid-version | hold | install | markauto |
purge | reinstall | remove | show | unhold | unmarkauto | versions} ...
aptitude extract-cache-subset ...
aptitude [...] search ...
aptitude [...] {add-user-tag | remove-user-tag} ...
aptitude [...] {why | why-not} [...]
aptitude [-S ] [--autoclean-on-startup | --clean-on-startup | -i | -u]
aptitude help
DESCRIPTION
aptitude is a text-based interface to the Debian GNU/Linux package system.
It allows the user to view the list of packages and to perform package management tasks such as installing, upgrading, and
removing packages. Actions may be performed from a visual interface or from the command-line.
COMMAND-LINE ACTIONS
The first argument which does not begin with a hyphen (“-”) is considered to be an action that the program should perform.
If an action is not specified on the command-line, aptitude will start up in visual mode.
The following actions are available:
install
Install one or more packages. The packages should be listed after the “install” command; if a package name contains a
tilde character (“~”) or a question mark (“?”), it will be treated as a search pattern and every package matching the
pattern will be installed (see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual).
To select a particular version of the package, append “=” to the package name: for instance, “aptitude install
apt=0.3.1”. Similarly, to select a package from a particular archive, append “/” to the package name: for
instance, “aptitude install apt/experimental”. You cannot specify both an archive and a version for a package.
Not every package listed on the command line has to be installed; you can tell aptitude to do something different with
a package by appending an “override specifier” to the name of the package. For example, aptitude remove wesnoth+ will
install wesnoth, not remove it. The following override specifiers are available:
+
Install .
+M
Install and immediately mark it as automatically installed (note that if nothing depends on ,
this will cause it to be immediately removed).
-
Remove .
_
Purge : remove it and all its associated configuration and data files.
=
Place on hold: cancel any active installation, upgrade, or removal, and prevent this package from being
automatically upgraded in the future.
:
Keep at its current version: cancel any installation, removal, or upgrade. Unlike “hold” (above) this
does not prevent automatic upgrades in the future.
&M
Mark as having been automatically installed.
&m
Mark as having been manually installed.
As a special case, “install” with no arguments will act on any stored/pending actions.
Note
Once you enter Y at the final confirmation prompt, the “install” command will modify aptitude's stored information
about what actions to perform. Therefore, if you issue (e.g.) the command “aptitude install foo bar” and then abort
the installation once aptitude has started downloading and installing packages, you will need to run “aptitude
remove foo bar” to cancel that order.
remove, purge, hold, unhold, keep, reinstall
These commands are the same as “install”, but apply the named action to all packages given on the command line for
which it is not overridden. The difference between hold and keep is that hold will cause a package to be ignored by
future safe-upgrade or full-upgrade commands, while keep merely cancels any scheduled actions on the package. unhold
will allow a package to be upgraded by future safe-upgrade or full-upgrade commands, without otherwise altering its
state.
For instance, “aptitude remove '~ndeity'” will remove all packages whose name contains “deity”.
markauto, unmarkauto
Mark packages as automatically installed or manually installed, respectively. Packages are specified in exactly the
same way as for the “install” command. For instance, “aptitude markauto '~slibs'” will mark all packages in the “libs”
section as having been automatically installed.
For more information on automatically installed packages, see the section “Managing Automatically Installed Packages”
in the aptitude reference manual.
build-depends, build-dep
Satisfy the build-dependencies of a package. Each package name may be a source package, in which case the build
dependencies of that source package are installed; otherwise, binary packages are found in the same way as for the
“install” command, and the build-dependencies of the source packages that build those binary packages are satisfied.
If the command-line parameter --arch-only is present, only architecture-dependent build dependencies (i.e., not
Build-Depends-Indep or Build-Conflicts-Indep) will be obeyed.
forbid-version
Forbid a package from being upgraded to a particular version. This will prevent aptitude from automatically upgrading
to this version, but will allow automatic upgrades to future versions. By default, aptitude will select the version to
which the package would normally be upgraded; you may override this selection by appending “=” to the package
name: for instance, “aptitude forbid-version vim=1.2.3.broken-4”.
This command is useful for avoiding broken versions of packages without having to set and clear manual holds. If you
decide you really want the forbidden version after all, “aptitude install ” will remove the ban.
update
Updates the list of available packages from the apt sources (this is equivalent to “apt-get update”)
safe-upgrade
Upgrades installed packages to their most recent version. Installed packages will not be removed unless they are unused
(see the section “Managing Automatically Installed Packages” in the aptitude reference manual). Packages which are not
currently installed may be installed to resolve dependencies unless the --no-new-installs command-line option is
supplied.
If no s are listed on the command line, aptitude will attempt to upgrade every package that can be upgraded.
Otherwise, aptitude will attempt to upgrade only the packages which it is instructed to upgrade. The s can be
extended with suffixes in the same manner as arguments to aptitude install, so you can also give additional
instructions to aptitude here; for instance, aptitude safe-upgrade bash dash- will attempt to upgrade the bash package
and remove the dash package.
It is sometimes necessary to remove one package in order to upgrade another; this command is not able to upgrade
packages in such situations. Use the full-upgrade command to upgrade as many packages as possible.
full-upgrade
Upgrades installed packages to their most recent version, removing or installing packages as necessary. This command is
less conservative than safe-upgrade and thus more likely to perform unwanted actions. However, it is capable of
upgrading packages that safe-upgrade cannot upgrade.
If no s are listed on the command line, aptitude will attempt to upgrade every package that can be upgraded.
Otherwise, aptitude will attempt to upgrade only the packages which it is instructed to upgrade. The s can be
extended with suffixes in the same manner as arguments to aptitude install, so you can also give additional
instructions to aptitude here; for instance, aptitude full-upgrade bash dash- will attempt to upgrade the bash package
and remove the dash package.
Note
This command was originally named dist-upgrade for historical reasons, and aptitude still recognizes dist-upgrade
as a synonym for full-upgrade.
keep-all
Cancels all scheduled actions on all packages; any packages whose sticky state indicates an installation, removal, or
upgrade will have this sticky state cleared.
forget-new
Forgets all internal information about what packages are “new” (equivalent to pressing “f” when in visual mode).
search
Searches for packages matching one of the patterns supplied on the command line. All packages which match any of the
given patterns will be displayed; for instance, “aptitude search '~N' edit” will list all “new” packages and all
packages whose name contains “edit”. For more information on search patterns, see the section “Search Patterns” in the
aptitude reference manual.
Note
In the example above, “aptitude search '~N' edit” has two arguments after search and thus is searching for two
patterns: “~N” and “edit”. As described in the search pattern reference, a single pattern composed of two
sub-patterns separated by a space (such as “~N edit”) matches only if both patterns match. Thus, the command
“aptitude search '~N edit'” will only show “new” packages whose name contains “edit”.
Unless you pass the -F option, the output of aptitude search will look something like this:
i apt - Advanced front-end for dpkg
pi apt-build - frontend to apt to build, optimize and in
cp apt-file - APT package searching utility -- command-
ihA raptor-utils - Raptor RDF Parser utilities
Each search result is listed on a separate line. The first character of each line indicates the current state of the
package: the most common states are p, meaning that no trace of the package exists on the system, c, meaning that the
package was deleted but its configuration files remain on the system, i, meaning that the package is installed, and v,
meaning that the package is virtual. The second character indicates the stored action (if any; otherwise a blank space
is displayed) to be performed on the package, with the most common actions being i, meaning that the package will be
installed, d, meaning that the package will be deleted, and p, meaning that the package and its configuration files
will be removed. If the third character is A, the package was automatically installed.
For a complete list of the possible state and action flags, see the section “Accessing Package Information” in the
aptitude reference guide. To customize the output of search, see the command-line options -F and --sort.
show
Displays detailed information about one or more packages, listed following the search command. If a package name
contains a tilde character (“~”) or a question mark (“?”), it will be treated as a search pattern and all matching
packages will be displayed (see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual).
If the verbosity level is 1 or greater (i.e., at least one -v is present on the command-line), information about all
versions of the package is displayed. Otherwise, information about the “candidate version” (the version that “aptitude
install” would download) is displayed.
You can display information about a different version of the package by appending = to the package name; you
can display the version from a particular archive or release by appending / or / to the package name:
for instance, /unstable or /sid. If either of these is present, then only the version you request will be displayed,
regardless of the verbosity level.
If the verbosity level is 1 or greater, the package's architecture, compressed size, filename, and md5sum fields will
be displayed. If the verbosity level is 2 or greater, the select version or versions will be displayed once for each
archive in which they are found.
versions
Displays the versions of the packages listed on the command-line.
$ aptitude versions wesnoth
p 1:1.4.5-1 100
p 1:1.6.5-1 unstable 500
p 1:1.7.14-1 experimental 1
Each version is listed on a separate line. The leftmost three characters indicate the current state, planned state (if
any), and whether the package was automatically installed; for more information on their meanings, see the
documentation of aptitude search. To the right of the version number you can find the releases from which the version
is available, and the pin priority of the version.
If a package name contains a tilde character (“~”) or a question mark (“?”), it will be treated as a search pattern and
all matching versions will be displayed (see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual). This
means that, for instance, aptitude versions '~i' will display all the versions that are currently installed on the
system and nothing else, not even other versions of the same packages.
$ aptitude versions '~nexim4-daemon-light'
Package exim4-daemon-light:
i 4.71-3 100
p 4.71-4 unstable 500
Package exim4-daemon-light-dbg:
p 4.71-4 unstable 500
If the input is a search pattern, or if more than one package's versions are to be displayed, aptitude will
automatically group the output by package, as shown above. You can disable this via --group-by=none, in which case
aptitude will display a single list of all the versions that were found and automatically include the package name in
each output line:
$ aptitude versions --group-by=none '~nexim4-daemon-light'
i exim4-daemon-light 4.71-3 100
p exim4-daemon-light 4.71-4 unstable 500
p exim4-daemon-light-dbg 4.71-4 unstable 500
To disable the package name, pass --show-package-names=never:
$ aptitude versions --show-package-names=never --group-by=none '~nexim4-daemon-light'
i 4.71-3 100
p 4.71-4 unstable 500
p 4.71-4 unstable 500
In addition to the above options, the information printed for each version can be controlled by the command-line option
-F. The order in which versions are displayed can be controlled by the command-line option --sort. To prevent aptitude
from formatting the output into columns, use --disable-columns.
add-user-tag, remove-user-tag
Adds a user tag to or removes a user tag from the selected group of packages. If a package name contains a tilde (“~”)
or question mark (“?”), it is treated as a search pattern and the tag is added to or removed from all the packages that
match the pattern (see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual).
User tags are arbitrary strings associated with a package. They can be used with the ?user-tag() search term,
which will select all the packages that have a user tag matching .
why, why-not
Explains the reason that a particular package should or cannot be installed on the system.
This command searches for packages that require or conflict with the given package. It displays a sequence of
dependencies leading to the target package, along with a note indicating the installed state of each package in the
dependency chain:
$ aptitude why kdepim
i nautilus-data Recommends nautilus
i A nautilus Recommends desktop-base (>= 0.2)
i A desktop-base Suggests gnome | kde | xfce4 | wmaker
p kde Depends kdepim (>= 4:3.4.3)
The command why finds a dependency chain that installs the package named on the command line, as above. Note that the
dependency that aptitude produced in this case is only a suggestion. This is because no package currently installed on
this computer depends on or recommends the kdepim package; if a stronger dependency were available, aptitude would have
displayed it.
In contrast, why-not finds a dependency chain leading to a conflict with the target package:
$ aptitude why-not textopo
i ocaml-core Depends ocamlweb
i A ocamlweb Depends tetex-extra | texlive-latex-extra
i A texlive-latex-extra Conflicts textopo
If one or more s are present, then aptitude will begin its search at these patterns; that is, the first
package in the chain it prints will be a package matching the pattern in question. The patterns are considered to be
package names unless they contain a tilde character (“~”) or a question mark (“?”), in which case they are treated as
search patterns (see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual).
If no patterns are present, then aptitude will search for dependency chains beginning at manually installed packages.
This effectively shows the packages that have caused or would cause a given package to be installed.
Note
aptitude why does not perform full dependency resolution; it only displays direct relationships between packages.
For instance, if A requires B, C requires D, and B and C conflict, “aptitude why-not D” will not produce the answer
“A depends on B, B conflicts with C, and D depends on C”.
By default aptitude outputs only the “most installed, strongest, tightest, shortest” dependency chain. That is, it
looks for a chain that only contains packages which are installed or will be installed; it looks for the strongest
possible dependencies under that restriction; it looks for chains that avoid ORed dependencies and Provides; and it
looks for the shortest dependency chain meeting those criteria. These rules are progressively weakened until a match is
found.
If the verbosity level is 1 or more, then all the explanations aptitude can find will be displayed, in inverse order of
relevance. If the verbosity level is 2 or more, a truly excessive amount of debugging information will be printed to
standard output.
This command returns 0 if successful, 1 if no explanation could be constructed, and -1 if an error occurred.
clean
Removes all previously downloaded .deb files from the package cache directory (usually /var/cache/apt/archives).
autoclean
Removes any cached packages which can no longer be downloaded. This allows you to prevent a cache from growing out of
control over time without completely emptying it.
changelog
Downloads and displays the Debian changelog for each of the given source or binary packages.
By default, the changelog for the version which would be installed with “aptitude install” is downloaded. You can
select a particular version of a package by appending = to the package name; you can select the version from a
particular archive or release by appending / or / to the package name (for instance, /unstable or
/sid).
download
Downloads the .deb file for the given package to the current directory. If a package name contains a tilde character
(“~”) or a question mark (“?”), it will be treated as a search pattern and all the matching packages will be downloaded
(see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual).
By default, the version which would be installed with “aptitude install” is downloaded. You can select a particular
version of a package by appending = to the package name; you can select the version from a particular archive
or release by appending / or / to the package name (for instance: /unstable or /sid).
extract-cache-subset
Copy the apt configuration directory (/etc/apt) and a subset of the package database to the specified directory. If no
packages are listed, the entire package database is copied; otherwise only the entries corresponding to the named
packages are copied. Each package name may be a search pattern, and all the packages matching that pattern will be
selected (see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual). Any existing package database files in
the output directory will be overwritten.
Dependencies in binary package stanzas will be rewritten to remove references to packages not in the selected set.
help
Displays a brief summary of the available commands and options.
OPTIONS
The following options may be used to modify the behavior of the actions described above. Note that while all options will
be accepted for all commands, some options don't apply to particular commands and will be ignored by those commands.
--add-user-tag
For full-upgrade, safe-upgrade, forbid-version, hold, install, keep-all, markauto, unmarkauto, purge, reinstall,
remove, unhold, and unmarkauto: add the user tag to all packages that are installed, removed, or upgraded by this
command as if with the add-user-tag command.
--add-user-tag-to ,
For full-upgrade, safe-upgrade forbid-version, hold, install, keep-all, markauto, unmarkauto, purge, reinstall, remove,
unhold, and unmarkauto: add the user tag to all packages that match as if with the add-user-tag
command. The pattern is a search pattern as described in the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference
manual.
For instance, aptitude safe-upgrade --add-user-tag-to "new-installs,?action(install)" will add the tag new-installs to
all the packages installed by the safe-upgrade command.
--allow-new-upgrades
When the safe resolver is being used (i.e., --safe-resolver was passed, the action is safe-upgrade, or
Aptitude::Always-Use-Safe-Resolver is set to true), allow the dependency resolver to install upgrades for packages
regardless of the value of Aptitude::Safe-Resolver::No-New-Upgrades.
--allow-new-installs
Allow the safe-upgrade command to install new packages; when the safe resolver is being used (i.e., --safe-resolver was
passed, the action is safe-upgrade, or Aptitude::Always-Use-Safe-Resolver is set to true), allow the dependency
resolver to install new packages. This option takes effect regardless of the value of
Aptitude::Safe-Resolver::No-New-Installs.
--allow-untrusted
Install packages from untrusted sources without prompting. You should only use this if you know what you are doing, as
it could easily compromise your system's security.
--disable-columns
This option causes aptitude search and aptitude versions to output their results without any special formatting. In
particular: normally aptitude will add whitespace or truncate search results in an attempt to fit its results into
vertical “columns”. With this flag, each line will be formed by replacing any format escapes in the format string with
the corresponding text; column widths will be ignored.
For instance, the first few lines of output from “aptitude search -F '%p %V' --disable-columns libedataserver” might
be:
disksearch 1.2.1-3
hp-search-mac 0.1.3
libbsearch-ruby 1.5-5
libbsearch-ruby1.8 1.5-5
libclass-dbi-abstractsearch-perl 0.07-2
libdbix-fulltextsearch-perl 0.73-10
As in the above example, --disable-columns is often useful in combination with a custom display format set using the
command-line option -F.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Disable-Columns.
-D, --show-deps
For commands that will install or remove packages (install, full-upgrade, etc), show brief explanations of automatic
installations and removals.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Deps.
-d, --download-only
Download packages to the package cache as necessary, but do not install or remove anything. By default, the package
cache is stored in /var/cache/apt/archives.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Download-Only.
-F , --display-format
Specify the format which should be used to display output from the search and versions commands. For instance, passing
“%p %V %v” for will display a package's name, followed by its currently installed version and its available
version (see the section “Customizing how packages are displayed” in the aptitude reference manual for more
information).
The command-line option --disable-columns is often useful in combination with -F.
For search, this corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Package-Display-Format; for versions, this
corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Version-Display-Format.
-f
Try hard to fix the dependencies of broken packages, even if it means ignoring the actions requested on the command
line.
This corresponds to the configuration item Aptitude::CmdLine::Fix-Broken.
--full-resolver
When package dependency problems are encountered, use the default “full” resolver to solve them. Unlike the “safe”
resolver activated by --safe-resolver, the full resolver will happily remove packages to fulfill dependencies. It can
resolve more situations than the safe algorithm, but its solutions are more likely to be undesirable.
This option can be used to force the use of the full resolver even when Aptitude::Always-Use-Safe-Resolver is true. The
safe-upgrade command never uses the full resolver and does not accept the --full-resolver option.
--group-by
Control how the versions command groups its output. The following values are recognized:
· archive to group packages by the archive they occur in (“stable”, “unstable”, etc). If a package occurs in several
archives, it will be displayed in each of them.
· auto to group versions by their package unless there is exactly one argument and it is not a search pattern.
· none to display all the versions in a single list without any grouping.
· package to group versions by their package.
· source-package to group versions by their source package.
· source-version to group versions by their source package and source version.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Versions-Group-By.
-h, --help
Display a brief help message. Identical to the help action.
--log-file=
If is a nonempty string, log messages will be written to it, except that if is “-”, the messages will be
written to standard output instead. If this option appears multiple times, the last occurrence is the one that will
take effect.
This does not affect the log of installations that aptitude has performed (/var/log/aptitude); the log messages written
using this configuration include internal program events, errors, and debugging messages. See the command-line option
--log-level to get more control over what gets logged.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::Logging::File.
--log-level=, --log-level=:
--log-level= causes aptitude to only log messages whose level is or higher. For instance, setting the
log level to error will cause only messages at the log levels error and fatal to be displayed; all others will be
hidden. Valid log levels (in descending order) are off, fatal, error, warn, info, debug, and trace. The default log
level is warn.
--log-level=: causes messages in to only be logged if their level is or higher.
--log-level may appear multiple times on the command line; the most specific setting is the one that takes effect, so
if you pass --log-level=aptitude.resolver:fatal and --log-level=aptitude.resolver.hints.match:trace, then messages in
aptitude.resolver.hints.parse will only be printed if their level is fatal, but all messages in
aptitude.resolver.hints.match will be printed. If you set the level of the same category two or more times, the last
setting is the one that will take effect.
This does not affect the log of installations that aptitude has performed (/var/log/aptitude); the log messages written
using this configuration include internal program events, errors, and debugging messages. See the command-line option
--log-file to change where log messages go.
This corresponds to the configuration group Aptitude::Logging::Levels.
--log-resolver
Set some standard log levels related to the resolver, to produce logging output suitable for processing with automated
tools. This is equivalent to the command-line options --log-level=aptitude.resolver.search:trace
--log-level=aptitude.resolver.search.tiers:info.
--no-new-installs
Prevent safe-upgrade from installing any new packages; when the safe resolver is being used (i.e., --safe-resolver was
passed or Aptitude::Always-Use-Safe-Resolver is set to true), forbid the dependency resolver from installing new
packages. This option takes effect regardless of the value of Aptitude::Safe-Resolver::No-New-Installs.
This mimics the historical behavior of apt-get upgrade.
--no-new-upgrades
When the safe resolver is being used (i.e., --safe-resolver was passed or Aptitude::Always-Use-Safe-Resolver is set to
true), forbid the dependency resolver from installing upgrades for packages regardless of the value of
Aptitude::Safe-Resolver::No-New-Upgrades.
--no-show-resolver-actions
Do not display the actions performed by the “safe” resolver, overriding any configuration option or earlier
--show-resolver-actions.
-O , --sort
Specify the order in which output from the search and versions commands should be displayed. For instance, passing
“installsize” for will list packages in order according to their size when installed (see the section
“Customizing how packages are sorted” in the aptitude reference manual for more information).
The default sort order is name,version.
-o =
Set a configuration file option directly; for instance, use -o Aptitude::Log=/tmp/my-log to log aptitude's actions to
/tmp/my-log. For more information on configuration file options, see the section “Configuration file reference” in the
aptitude reference manual.
-P, --prompt
Always display a prompt before downloading, installing or removing packages, even when no actions other than those
explicitly requested will be performed.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Always-Prompt.
--purge-unused
If Aptitude::Delete-Unused is set to “true” (its default), then in addition to removing each package that is no longer
required by any installed package, aptitude will also purge them, removing their configuration files and perhaps other
important data. For more information about which packages are considered to be “unused”, see the section “Managing
Automatically Installed Packages” in the aptitude reference manual. THIS OPTION CAN CAUSE DATA LOSS! DO NOT USE IT
UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::Purge-Unused.
-q[=], --quiet[=]
Suppress all incremental progress indicators, thus making the output loggable. This may be supplied multiple times to
make the program quieter, but unlike apt-get, aptitude does not enable -y when -q is supplied more than once.
The optional = may be used to directly set the amount of quietness (for instance, to override a setting in
/etc/apt/apt.conf); it causes the program to behave as if -q had been passed exactly times.
-R, --without-recommends
Do not treat recommendations as dependencies when installing new packages (this overrides settings in /etc/apt/apt.conf
and ~/.aptitude/config). Packages previously installed due to recommendations will not be removed.
This corresponds to the pair of configuration options Apt::Install-Recommends and Apt::AutoRemove::InstallRecommends.
-r, --with-recommends
Treat recommendations as dependencies when installing new packages (this overrides settings in /etc/apt/apt.conf and
~/.aptitude/config).
This corresponds to the configuration option Apt::Install-Recommends
--remove-user-tag
For full-upgrade, safe-upgrade forbid-version, hold, install, keep-all, markauto, unmarkauto, purge, reinstall, remove,
unhold, and unmarkauto: remove the user tag from all packages that are installed, removed, or upgraded by this
command as if with the add-user-tag command.
--remove-user-tag-from ,
For full-upgrade, safe-upgrade forbid-version, hold, install, keep-all, markauto, unmarkauto, purge, reinstall, remove,
unhold, and unmarkauto: remove the user tag from all packages that match as if with the remove-user-tag
command. The pattern is a search pattern as described in the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference
manual.
For instance, aptitude safe-upgrade --remove-user-tag-from "not-upgraded,?action(upgrade)" will remove the not-upgraded
tag from all packages that the safe-upgrade command is able to upgrade.
-s, --simulate
In command-line mode, print the actions that would normally be performed, but don't actually perform them. This does
not require root privileges. In the visual interface, always open the cache in read-only mode regardless of whether you
are root.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::Simulate.
--safe-resolver
When package dependency problems are encountered, use a “safe” algorithm to solve them. This resolver attempts to
preserve as many of your choices as possible; it will never remove a package or install a version of a package other
than the package's default candidate version. It is the same algorithm used in safe-upgrade; indeed, aptitude
--safe-resolver full-upgrade is equivalent to aptitude safe-upgrade. Because safe-upgrade always uses the safe
resolver, it does not accept the --safe-resolver flag.
This option is equivalent to setting the configuration variable Aptitude::Always-Use-Safe-Resolver to true.
--schedule-only
For commands that modify package states, schedule operations to be performed in the future, but don't perform them. You
can execute scheduled actions by running aptitude install with no arguments. This is equivalent to making the
corresponding selections in visual mode, then exiting the program normally.
For instance, aptitude --schedule-only install evolution will schedule the evolution package for later installation.
--show-package-names
Controls when the versions command shows package names. The following settings are allowed:
· always: display package names every time that aptitude versions runs.
· auto: display package names when aptitude versions runs if the output is not grouped by package, and either there
is a pattern-matching argument or there is more than one argument.
· never: never display package names in the output of aptitude versions.
This option corresponds to the configuration item Aptitude::CmdLine::Versions-Show-Package-Names.
--show-resolver-actions
Display the actions performed by the “safe” resolver and by safe-upgrade.
When executing the command safe-upgrade or when the option --safe-resolver is present, aptitude will display a summary
of the actions performed by the resolver before printing the installation preview. This is equivalent to the
configuration option Aptitude::Safe-Resolver::Show-Resolver-Actions.
--show-summary[=]
Changes the behavior of “aptitude why” to summarize each dependency chain that it outputs, rather than displaying it in
long form. If this option is present and is not “no-summary”, chains that contain Suggests dependencies will not
be displayed: combine --show-summary with -v to see a summary of all the reasons for the target package to be
installed.
can be any one of the following:
1. no-summary: don't show a summary (the default behavior if --show-summary is not present).
2. first-package: display the first package in each chain. This is the default value of if it is not present.
3. first-package-and-type: display the first package in each chain, along with the strength of the weakest dependency
in the chain.
4. all-packages: briefly display each chain of dependencies leading to the target package.
5. all-packages-with-dep-versions: briefly display each chain of dependencies leading to the target package,
including the target version of each dependency.
This option corresponds to the configuration item Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Summary; if --show-summary is present on the
command-line, it will override Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Summary.
Example 10. Usage of --show-summary
--show-summary used with -v to display all the reasons a package is installed:
$ aptitude -v --show-summary why foomatic-db
Packages requiring foomatic-db:
cupsys-driver-gutenprint
foomatic-db-engine
foomatic-db-gutenprint
foomatic-db-hpijs
foomatic-filters-ppds
foomatic-gui
kde
printconf
wine
$ aptitude -v --show-summary=first-package-and-type why foomatic-db
Packages requiring foomatic-db:
[Depends] cupsys-driver-gutenprint
[Depends] foomatic-db-engine
[Depends] foomatic-db-gutenprint
[Depends] foomatic-db-hpijs
[Depends] foomatic-filters-ppds
[Depends] foomatic-gui
[Depends] kde
[Depends] printconf
[Depends] wine
$ aptitude -v --show-summary=all-packages why foomatic-db
Packages requiring foomatic-db:
cupsys-driver-gutenprint D: cups-driver-gutenprint D: cups R: foomatic-filters R: foomatic-db-engine D: foomatic-db
foomatic-filters-ppds D: foomatic-filters R: foomatic-db-engine D: foomatic-db
kde D: kdeadmin R: system-config-printer-kde D: system-config-printer R: hal-cups-utils D: cups R: foomatic-filters R: foomatic-db-engine D: foomatic-db
wine D: libwine-print D: cups-bsd R: cups R: foomatic-filters R: foomatic-db-engine D: foomatic-db
foomatic-db-engine D: foomatic-db
foomatic-db-gutenprint D: foomatic-db
foomatic-db-hpijs D: foomatic-db
foomatic-gui D: python-foomatic D: foomatic-db-engine D: foomatic-db
printconf D: foomatic-db
$ aptitude -v --show-summary=all-packages-with-dep-versions why foomatic-db
Packages requiring foomatic-db:
cupsys-driver-gutenprint D: cups-driver-gutenprint (>= 5.0.2-4) D: cups (>= 1.3.0) R: foomatic-filters (>= 4.0) R: foomatic-db-engine (>= 4.0) D: foomatic-db (>= 20090301)
foomatic-filters-ppds D: foomatic-filters R: foomatic-db-engine (>= 4.0) D: foomatic-db (>= 20090301)
kde D: kdeadmin (>= 4:3.5.5) R: system-config-printer-kde (>= 4:4.2.2-1) D: system-config-printer (>= 1.0.0) R: hal-cups-utils D: cups R: foomatic-filters (>= 4.0) R: foomatic-db-engine (>= 4.0) D: foomatic-db (>= 20090301)
wine D: libwine-print (= 1.1.15-1) D: cups-bsd R: cups R: foomatic-filters (>= 4.0) R: foomatic-db-engine (>= 4.0) D: foomatic-db (>= 20090301)
foomatic-db-engine D: foomatic-db
foomatic-db-gutenprint D: foomatic-db
foomatic-db-hpijs D: foomatic-db
foomatic-gui D: python-foomatic (>= 0.7.9.2) D: foomatic-db-engine D: foomatic-db (>= 20090301)
printconf D: foomatic-db
--show-summary used to list a chain on one line:
$ aptitude --show-summary=all-packages why aptitude-gtk libglib2.0-data
Packages requiring libglib2.0-data:
aptitude-gtk D: libglib2.0-0 R: libglib2.0-data
-t , --target-release
Set the release from which packages should be installed. For instance, “aptitude -t experimental ...” will install
packages from the experimental distribution unless you specify otherwise. For the command-line actions “changelog”,
“download”, and “show”, this is equivalent to appending / to each package named on the command-line; for other
commands, this will affect the default candidate version of packages according to the rules described in
apt_preferences(5).
This corresponds to the configuration item APT::Default-Release.
-V, --show-versions
Show which versions of packages will be installed.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Versions.
-v, --verbose
Causes some commands (for instance, show) to display extra information. This may be supplied multiple times to get more
and more information.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Verbose.
--version
Display the version of aptitude and some information about how it was compiled.
--visual-preview
When installing or removing packages from the command line, instead of displaying the usual prompt, start up the visual
interface and display its preview screen.
-W, --show-why
In the preview displayed before packages are installed or removed, show which manually installed package requires each
automatically installed package. For instance:
$ aptitude --show-why install mediawiki
...
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libapache2-mod-php5{a} (for mediawiki) mediawiki php5{a} (for mediawiki)
php5-cli{a} (for mediawiki) php5-common{a} (for mediawiki)
php5-mysql{a} (for mediawiki)
When combined with -v or a non-zero value for Aptitude::CmdLine::Verbose, this displays the entire chain of
dependencies that lead each package to be installed. For instance:
$ aptitude -v --show-why install libdb4.2-dev
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libdb4.2{a} (libdb4.2-dev D: libdb4.2) libdb4.2-dev
The following packages will be REMOVED:
libdb4.4-dev{a} (libdb4.2-dev C: libdb-dev P<- libdb-dev)
This option will also describe why packages are being removed, as shown above. In this example, libdb4.2-dev conflicts
with libdb-dev, which is provided by libdb-dev.
This argument corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Why and displays the same information
that is computed by aptitude why and aptitude why-not.
-w , --width
Specify the display width which should be used for output from the search command (by default, the terminal width is
used).
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Package-Display-Width
-y, --assume-yes
When a yes/no prompt would be presented, assume that the user entered “yes”. In particular, suppresses the prompt that
appears when installing, upgrading, or removing packages. Prompts for “dangerous” actions, such as removing essential
packages, will still be displayed. This option overrides -P.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Assume-Yes.
-Z
Show how much disk space will be used or freed by the individual packages being installed, upgraded, or removed.
This corresponds to the configuration option Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Size-Changes.
The following options apply to the visual mode of the program, but are primarily for internal use; you generally won't need
to use them yourself.
--autoclean-on-startup
Deletes old downloaded files when the program starts (equivalent to starting the program and immediately selecting
Actions → Clean obsolete files). You cannot use this option and “--autoclean-on-startup”, “-i”, or “-u” at the same
time.
--clean-on-startup
Cleans the package cache when the program starts (equivalent to starting the program and immediately selecting Actions
→ Clean package cache). You cannot use this option and “--autoclean-on-startup”, “-i”, or “-u” at the same time.
-i
Displays a download preview when the program starts (equivalent to starting the program and immediately pressing “g”).
You cannot use this option and “--autoclean-on-startup”, “--clean-on-startup”, or “-u” at the same time.
-S
Loads the extended state information from instead of the standard state file.
-u
Begins updating the package lists as soon as the program starts. You cannot use this option and
“--autoclean-on-startup”, “--clean-on-startup”, or “-i” at the same time.
ENVIRONMENT
HOME
If $HOME/.aptitude exists, aptitude will store its configuration file in $HOME/.aptitude/config. Otherwise, it will
look up the current user's home directory using getpwuid(2) and place its configuration file there.
PAGER
If this environment variable is set, aptitude will use it to display changelogs when “aptitude changelog” is invoked.
If not set, it defaults to more.
TMP
If TMPDIR is unset, aptitude will store its temporary files in TMP if that variable is set. Otherwise, it will store
them in /tmp.
TMPDIR
aptitude will store its temporary files in the directory indicated by this environment variable. If TMPDIR is not set,
then TMP will be used; if TMP is also unset, then aptitude will use /tmp.
FILES
/var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates
The file in which stored package states and some package flags are stored.
/etc/apt/apt.conf, /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/*, ~/.aptitude/config
The configuration files for aptitude. ~/.aptitude/config overrides /etc/apt/apt.conf. See apt.conf(5) for
documentation of the format and contents of these files.
SEE ALSO
apt-get(8), apt(8), /usr/share/doc/aptitude/html//index.html from the package aptitude-doc-
AUTHOR
Daniel Burrows
Author.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2004-2011 Daniel Burrows.
This manual page is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.
This manual page is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
aptitude 0.6.8.1 10/04/2012 APTITUDE(8)
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