• ranzispa@mander.xyz
    0·
    29 days ago

    I used all of them. Out of the three apt is the one I dislike the most. Dnf is half baked, but works well enough anyway. Pacman is actually very nice, I just don’t use arch anymore.

      • ranzispa@mander.xyz
        0·
        29 days ago

        Not that I dislike it, but many quality of life things are missing. One simple example is that a sensible way to manage which packages are automatically installed and not manually has been introduced only recently. Searching for dependencies of packages is quite complex. If you know the name of the executable/library file I’m not sure whether it is possible to retrieve the package who provides it. Asides from that, it is the one package manager who gave me the most problems when something goes wrong. Not comparing to the problems that arise from arch all the time, but apt often has locking problems, incorrect resolution, impossibilities to upgrade certain packages and many many problems if you start introducing third party repositories. It is quite usable, don’t get me wrong; but I never felt all this hindrance while using dnf.

      • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        27 days ago

        The list of upgrades being one big paragraph instead of separate lines is bad enough. I have some Debian servers but never looked if there’s a flag to make it look better.

        Also no history or rollback. Madison is dumb as I recall. Just kind of unintuitive and bare bones for me. Dnf (especially dnf5) suit me fine but I’m an rpm homer.

        • Digit@lemmy.wtfEnglish
          0·
          27 days ago

          When and where did you last use apt?

          apt upgrade’s not formatted like that here for me (currently on mx). Uses colour and spaced columns.

          apt-get upgrade is like that still, one big paragraph.

      • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        29 days ago

        Not OP. I like apt. But I switched over from redhat/fedora to Ubuntu like 15+ years ago, and I will say the rpm command offered much better options for querying package metadata. What mostly comes to mind is searching for files belonging to a package, or finding what package a file belongs to. dpkg/ apt-* can’t do that out of the box without some additional apt-* tools installed. Which is ok, but a bit extra clunky.

        • ExtremeUnicorn@feddit.org
          0·
          29 days ago

          Isn’t dnf the equivalent of apt? I don’t think I’ve ever used rpm, but wouldn’t that be more like using gdebi for deb-packages?

          • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
            0·
            29 days ago

            Dnf sits on top of rpm (formerly yum did this, formerly up2date did this) the same way apt sits on top of dpkg.

            While ultimately they both provide similar general functionality (installing and updating packages) the specific command syntax and switches differ. And some commands imo are more useful than others.

  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    29 days ago

    No contest. Apt-rpm is superior in every way.

    SuSE people can sit down too. I’ve seen inside that mess.

  • The Picard Maneuver@piefed.worldEnglish
    0·
    29 days ago

    I’m only 4 months into Linux, and apt is my comfort zone. Checking out other distros that use something else has me running away like:

    • thisbenzingring@lemmy.todayEnglish
      0·
      29 days ago

      don’t let this type of bantering concern you

      we are all just splitting hairs and knocking each other’s preferences when it is basically trivial. Like BMW and Mercedes drivers trying to one up who drives the superior German car

    • Laser@feddit.org
      0·
      29 days ago

      pacman is very fast and handy. The (in)famous pacman -Syu had you system completely up to date in record time.

      Sometimes I miss its speed and simplicity

    • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      29 days ago

      sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

      =

      sudo dnf update -y

      For most systems. If you can get apt you can get any of them.

      • Jankatarch@lemmy.world
        0·
        29 days ago

        The feds don’t want you to know this but you can just put “-U” at the end of sudo apt upgrade and it updates before upgrading.

            • Digit@lemmy.wtfEnglish
              0·
              27 days ago

              If they are suppressing this

              Yup. Must be. No “-U” found in man apt.

              (Is there in man apt-get though. And it works on both.).

              And it does not show up in fish’s option completion options on either, either.

              Near 20 years of having been using apt-get (and later, apt), if I ever knew this, I forgot. Could have been doing just one command all this time.

              what else aren’t they telling us

    • fahfahfahfah@lemmy.billiam.netEnglish
      0·
      29 days ago

      You can basically take that statement and replace “apt” with “whatever the first package tool I used” and it would be true for anyone.

    • udon@lemmy.world
      0·
      29 days ago

      Don’t panic, apt+flatpak does everything very well, if all you need is a working computer. If you need a hobby, try nix or guix

      • Digit@lemmy.wtfEnglish
        0·
        27 days ago

        Or for the ultimate hobby to dedicate to, cave.

        (Prizes for any who even know which package manager and distro that’s from.)

    • palordrolap@fedia.io
      0·
      29 days ago

      YSK/PSA: If you’re on Mint, Mint’s apt is not Debian’s apt and while they work similarly for common use cases, they diverge pretty quickly beyond that. Both are installed by default but Mint’s takes precedence.*

      Case in point: I was looking for which package - specifically one that was not yet installed - contains a certain command line tool and Mint’s apt search does not find it. Debian’s does. **

      On the other hand, Mint’s apt has way more subcommands than the default one, which have been useful on occasion.

      * Mint’s is at /usr/local/bin/apt and Debian’s is at /usr/bin/apt; The default user $PATH puts /usr/local/bin before /usr/bin.

      ** FWIW, the tool is/was sponge and it’s in the moreutils package.

      • Bobo The Great@startrek.website
        0·
        29 days ago

        I wonder why apt search on ubuntu and debian must be so bad: on mint each package has a single line and an easy letter telling you if the program is installed or not. On debian/ubuntu each program takes multiple lines, are all green and the only way to distinguish installed ones is to look for an (installed) string at the end of the first line. I like Mint’s apt version so much

          • palordrolap@fedia.io
            0·
            29 days ago

            LMDE’s system is the same as regular Mint. I’ve been on LMDE for a few years but was on regular before that.

      • Colloidal@programming.dev
        0·
        29 days ago

        Just use aptitude and be happy.

        Disclaimer: while aptitude was originally designed to replicate the apt CLI interface, I have never run the search command through it. The TUI is marvelous, though.

        • debil@lemmy.world
          0·
          29 days ago

          Nowadays apt supports deleting dangling config files with apt purge "~c" so no need to have aptitude for that feature. However, aptitude why <package> is pretty handy, and if you bump into dependency problems aptitude is quite capable of suggesting valid solutions.

          Disclaimer: I’ve never used aptitude’s TUI.

          • udon@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            27 days ago

            However, aptitude why <package> is pretty handy

            Dude/dudesse, what the hell is this and why have I never heard of it? Sounds really useful on the manpage, I hope I remember it next time I need it. Thanks! 😊

          • Colloidal@programming.dev
            0·
            26 days ago

            I need to have aptitude because the TUI is boss. Even if it had less features than apt, I’d still prefer it. It’s nice to know it’s ahead of the curve, though.

    • devfuuu@lemmy.world
      0·
      29 days ago

      Exactly what I feel when I look or have to interact with anything that doesn’t have pacman 😅

      • The Picard Maneuver@piefed.worldEnglish
        0·
        29 days ago

        I have to admit that I love the “pacman” pun quite a bit, which is nearly enough by itself to convince me to try it. One day. Maybe.

        • BurntWits@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          29 days ago

          I can’t lie, that’s one of the reasons I moved over to CachyOS a few months back. It’s not the only reason, but it’s been my favourite distro for sure that I’ve tried. It’s the first one that really felt good to me.

          • cygnus@lemmy.ca
            0·
            29 days ago

            It’s really a great distro, I’ve been using it fulltime on laptop and PC for over a year. Best one I’ve tried so far and for some reason it’s less buggy than EndeavourOS was for me. The only thing I don’t like about it is the name.

      • alecsargent@lemmy.zip
        0·
        28 days ago

        Its a excerpt from pacman’s configuration file, first line makes the progress bar a pacman that eats dots while downloading packages, the second line is self explanatory and the third allows to download multiple packages at the same time so there are 15 pacmans at all times while downloading.

        ILoveCandy Preview

      • Aedis@lemmy.world
        0·
        29 days ago

        Been using it for 2 years now, never once had it break unless I messed up the command and tried to update aur packages along with system packages

  • AstroLightz@lemmy.world
    0·
    29 days ago

    Pacman is great until you forget to delete your lock file because you interrupted an update and wonder why it isn’t working.

    APT is user-friendly, but a pain to automate in scripts.

    the real winner is compiling from source. 😎

    • Digit@lemmy.wtfEnglish
      0·
      27 days ago

      Oh I so want to upvote that. Why did you have to go and ruin it by adding “and Flatpak”? n_n