Annvix:Documentation/apt

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A urpmi user's guide to apt

As of Annvix 2.0-CURRENT, urpmi is no longer the package management tool of choice. Instead, we have adopted apt-rpm (aka "apt-4-rpm") to handle all package installation responsibilities.

The daily update of the repositories that used to use urpmi now uses apt. The upgrade from 1.2-RELEASE to 2.0-CURRENT creates an apt configuration based on your pre-existing urpmi configuration. Finally, the ports system now uses apt instead of urpmi.

For those who use Annvix because of it's (now nearly non-existant) similarities to Mandriva, you may be confused or wondering how to use apt, having come from a urpmi background. Even older users of Annvix may be wondering how to do in apt what comes natually with urpmi.

Comparison of urpmi and apt-get commands

The typical "cycle" of working with urpmi involves updating the repository, installing packages, or upgrading pre-existing packages to their newest version. These commands would be:

• urpmi.update -a: update all the urpmi repositories
• urpmi joe: installs the rpm package joe
• urpmi --auto-select: upgrades all pre-existing packages to the latest versions from any repository

The commands are very similar with apt:

• apt-get update: updates all the apt repositories
• apt-get install joe: installs the rpm package joe
• apt-get upgrade: upgrades all pre-existing packages to the latest versions from any repository, provided that no new packages must be installed to satisfy dependencies
• apt-get dist-upgrade: upgrades all pre-existing packages to the latest versions from any repository and will install any new packages required to satisfy dependencies

Configuration changes

urpmi used a special command to add and remove media; the urpmi.addmedia and urpmi.removemedia commands. apt does not require anything like this, instead you can edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file to change and add repositories.

For instance, a sources.list file may look like:

rpm ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/annvix/releases i586 release release-doc
# added by annvix-ports
rpm file:/usr/local/ports packages ports

When you issue apt-get update it will update all repositories, unlike urpmi where you must either specify a repository to update or use the "-a" option to update them all.