Re: [orca-list] Can command line do everything that synaptic does

[Jason White <jason jasonjgw net>]

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 08:21:28PM -0800, Charlie Dorff wrote:
> I was wondering if it's possible to use the command line or terminal to do
> everything that synaptic does. 

I wasn't sure what Synaptic did, thus I looked up the package description by
typing
aptitude show synaptic

and it turned out that Synaptic is a graphical interface to the package
management system.

The aptitude command will let you search for, install and remove packages,
place packages on hold, upgrade the entire system, etc. A manual can be found
in the aptitude-doc-en package:
sudo aptitude install aptitude-doc-en

and it also has a manual page.

Under Debian, everything related to package management, including system
upgrades, can be done with aptitude. I've heard that system upgrades of Ubuntu
require other tools and scripts, but since I'm not a Ubuntu user, I don't know
the details.