Re: apt-get

[Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@xxxxxxxxx>]

Andreas Hauser wrote:
>>     Lets just call it a 'lively debate'.  apt-get may not be perfect (and
>>     keep in mind that what I am considering is using the framework, not
>>     using Debian's packages).  But apt-get is certainly a whole lot better
>>     then the FreeBSD ports system.
>
>If you could elaborate on what makes apt-get better than "portupgrade -NPP".

One thing apt-get can do is look at multiple repositories.  In my
opinion that's a *huge* plus when you want to play with experimental
packages that haven't been committed.  For example, kde 3.2 didn't get
into sid (unstable) until version 3.2.1 was released, but those who
wanted to try it anyway could add a single line to the
/etc/apt/sources.list file and install kde 3.2 with a single apt-get
command.  It's a huge mess to do the same in FreeBSD-land, and there
are constant complaints on the ports list on why such-and-such
package is out-of-date (often a new version has been send-pr'd but not
committed).

Related to that, apt-get can handle multiple versions of the same
package; FreeBSD ports, as they stand, can't, without ugly hacks like
creating a differently-named port to live in a different subdirectory
of the ports tree.  (Though perhaps portupgrade can be tweaked to do
it).

Rahul