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 (lq-rq) 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 lqinstallrq command; if a package name contains a tilde character (lq~rq) or a question mark (lq?rq), it will be treated as a search pattern and every package matching the pattern will be installed (see the section lqSearch Patternsrq in the aptitude reference manual).

To select a particular version of the package, append lq=<version>rq to the package name: for instance, lqaptitude install apt=0.3.1rq. Similarly, to select a package from a particular archive, append lq/<archive>rq to the package name: for instance, lqaptitude install apt/experimentalrq. 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 lqoverride specifierrq to the name of the package. For example, aptitude remove wesnoth+ will install wesnoth, not remove it. The following override specifiers are available:

<package>+

Install <package>.

<package>+M

Install <package> and immediately mark it as automatically installed (note that if nothing depends on <package>, this will cause it to be immediately removed).

<package>-

Remove <package>.

<package>_

Purge <package>: remove it and all its associated configuration and data files.

<package>=

Place <package> on hold: cancel any active installation, upgrade, or removal, and prevent this package from being automatically upgraded in the future.

<package>:

Keep <package> at its current version: cancel any installation, removal, or upgrade. Unlike lqholdrq (above) this does not prevent automatic upgrades in the future.

<package>&M

Mark <package> as having been automatically installed.

<package>&m

Mark <package> as having been manually installed.

<package>&BD

Install the build-dependencies of a <package>.

As a special case, lqinstallrq with no arguments will act on any stored/pending actions.

Note

Once you enter Y at the final confirmation prompt, the lqinstallrq command will modify aptitude's stored information about what actions to perform. Therefore, if you issue (e.g.) the command lqaptitude install foo barrq and then abort the installation once aptitude has started downloading and installing packages, you will need to run lqaptitude remove foo barrq to cancel that order.

remove, purge, hold, unhold, keep, reinstall

These commands are the same as lqinstallrq, 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, lqaptitude remove '~ndeity'rq will remove all packages whose name contains lqdeityrq.

markauto, unmarkauto

Mark packages as automatically installed or manually installed, respectively. Packages are specified in exactly the same way as for the lqinstallrq command. For instance, lqaptitude markauto '~slibs'rq will mark all packages in the lqlibsrq section as having been automatically installed.

For more information on automatically installed packages, see the section lqManaging Automatically Installed Packagesrq 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 lqinstallrq 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 lq=<version>rq to the package name: for instance, lqaptitude forbid-version vim=1.2.3.broken-4rq.

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, lqaptitude install <package>rq will remove the ban.

update

Updates the list of available packages from the apt sources (this is equivalent to lqapt-get updaterq)

safe-upgrade

Upgrades installed packages to their most recent version. Installed packages will not be removed unless they are unused (see the section lqManaging Automatically Installed Packagesrq 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 <package>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 <package>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 <package>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 <package>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 lqnewrq (equivalent to pressing lqfrq 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, lqaptitude search '~N' editrq will list all lqnewrq packages and all packages whose name contains lqeditrq. For more information on search patterns, see the section lqSearch Patternsrq in the aptitude reference manual.

Note

In the example above, lqaptitude search '~N' editrq has two arguments after search and thus is searching for two patterns: lq~Nrq and lqeditrq. As described in the search pattern reference, a single pattern composed of two sub-patterns separated by a space (such as lq~N editrq) matches only if both patterns match. Thus, the command lqaptitude search '~N edit'rq will only show lqnewrq packages whose name contains lqeditrq.

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 lqAccessing Package Informationrq 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. If a package name contains a tilde character (lq~rq) or a question mark (lq?rq), it will be treated as a search pattern and all matching packages will be displayed (see the section lqSearch Patternsrq 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 lqcandidate versionrq (the version that lqaptitude installrq would download) is displayed.

You can display information about a different version of the package by appending =<version> to the package name; you can display the version from a particular archive or release by appending /<archive> or /<release> 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 (lq~rq) or a question mark (lq?rq), it will be treated as a search pattern and all matching versions will be displayed (see the section lqSearch Patternsrq 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 (lq~rq) or question mark (lq?rq), 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 lqSearch Patternsrq in the aptitude reference manual).

User tags are arbitrary strings associated with a package. They can be used with the ?user-tag(<tag>) search term, which will select all the packages that have a user tag matching <tag>.

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 <pattern>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 (lq~rq) or a question mark (lq?rq), in which case they are treated as search patterns (see the section lqSearch Patternsrq 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, lqaptitude why-not Drq will not produce the answer lqA depends on B, B conflicts with C, and D depends on Crq.

By default aptitude outputs only the lqmost installed, strongest, tightest, shortestrq 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 lqaptitude installrq is downloaded. You can select a particular version of a package by appending =<version> to the package name; you can select the version from a particular archive or release by appending /<archive> or /<release> 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 (lq~rq) or a question mark (lq?rq), it will be treated as a search pattern and all the matching packages will be downloaded (see the section lqSearch Patternsrq in the aptitude reference manual).

By default, the version which would be installed with lqaptitude installrq is downloaded. You can select a particular version of a package by appending =<version> to the package name; you can select the version from a particular archive or release by appending /<archive> or /<release> 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 lqSearch Patternsrq 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 <tag>

For full-upgrade, safe-upgrade, forbid-version, hold, install, keep-all, markauto, unmarkauto, purge, reinstall, remove, unhold, and unmarkauto: add the user tag <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 <tag>,<pattern>

For full-upgrade, safe-upgradeforbid-version, hold, install, keep-all, markauto, unmarkauto, purge, reinstall, remove, unhold, and unmarkauto: add the user tag <tag> to all packages that match <pattern> as if with the add-user-tag command. The pattern is a search pattern as described in the section lqSearch Patternsrq 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 lqcolumnsrq. 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 lqaptitude search -F '%p %V' --disable-columns libedataserverrq 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 <format>, --display-format <format>

Specify the format which should be used to display output from the search and versions commands. For instance, passing lq%p %v %Vrq for <format> will display a package's name, followed by its currently installed version and its candidate version (see the section lqCustomizing how packages are displayedrq 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 lqfullrq resolver to solve them. Unlike the lqsaferq 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.

--group-by <grouping-mode>

Control how the versions command groups its output. The following values are recognized:

* archive to group packages by the archive they occur in (lqstablerq, lqunstablerq, 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=<file>

If <file> is a nonempty string, log messages will be written to it, except that if <file> is lq-rq, 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=<level>, --log-level=<category>:<level>

--log-level=<level> causes aptitude to only log messages whose level is <level> 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=<category>:<level> causes messages in <category> to only be logged if their level is <level> 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 lqsaferq resolver, overriding any configuration option or earlier --show-resolver-actions.

-O <order>, --sort <order>

Specify the order in which output from the search and versions commands should be displayed. For instance, passing lqinstallsizerq for <order> will list packages in order according to their size when installed (see the section lqCustomizing how packages are sortedrq in the aptitude reference manual for more information).

The default sort order is name,version.

-o <key>=<value>

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 lqConfiguration file referencerq 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 lqtruerq (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 lqunusedrq, see the section lqManaging Automatically Installed Packagesrq 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[=<n>], --quiet[=<n>]

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 =<n> 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 <n> 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::RecommendsImportant.

-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 <tag>

For full-upgrade, safe-upgradeforbid-version, hold, install, keep-all, markauto, unmarkauto, purge, reinstall, remove, unhold, and unmarkauto: remove the user tag <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 <tag>,<pattern>

For full-upgrade, safe-upgradeforbid-version, hold, install, keep-all, markauto, unmarkauto, purge, reinstall, remove, unhold, and unmarkauto: remove the user tag <tag> from all packages that match <pattern> as if with the remove-user-tag command. The pattern is a search pattern as described in the section lqSearch Patternsrq 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 lqsaferq 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 <when>

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 lqsaferq 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[=<MODE>]

Changes the behavior of lqaptitude whyrq to summarize each dependency chain that it outputs, rather than displaying it in long form. If this option is present and <MODE> is not lqno-summaryrq, 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.

<MODE> 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 <MODE> 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 12. 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 <release>, --target-release <release>

Set the release from which packages should be installed. For instance, lqaptitude -t experimental ...rq will install packages from the experimental distribution unless you specify otherwise. For the command-line actions lqchangelogrq, lqdownloadrq, and lqshowrq, this is equivalent to appending /<release> 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>, --width <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 lqyesrq. In particular, suppresses the prompt that appears when installing, upgrading, or removing packages. Prompts for lqdangerousrq 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 lq--autoclean-on-startuprq, lq-irq, or lq-urq 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 lq--autoclean-on-startuprq, lq-irq, or lq-urq at the same time.

-i

Displays a download preview when the program starts (equivalent to starting the program and immediately pressing lqgrq). You cannot use this option and lq--autoclean-on-startuprq, lq--clean-on-startuprq, or lq-urq at the same time.

-S <fname>

Loads the extended state information from <fname> instead of the standard state file.

-u

Begins updating the package lists as soon as the program starts. You cannot use this option and lq--autoclean-on-startuprq, lq--clean-on-startuprq, or lq-irq 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 lqaptitude changelogrq 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/<lang>/index.html from the package aptitude-doc-<lang>

AUTHORS

Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org>

Main author of the document.

Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <mafm@debian.org>

Added documentation about new features, corrections and formatting.

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.