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APTITUDE(8)		    Command-line reference		   APTITUDE(8)

NAME
       aptitude - high-level interface to the package manager

SYNOPSIS
       aptitude [<options>...] {autoclean | clean | forget-new | keep-all |
		update}

       aptitude [<options>...] {full-upgrade | safe-upgrade} [<packages>...]

       aptitude [<options>...] {build-dep | build-depends | changelog |
		download | forbid-version | hold | install | markauto | purge
		| reinstall | remove | show | unhold | unmarkauto | versions}
		<packages>...

       aptitude extract-cache-subset <output-directory> <packages>...

       aptitude [<options>...] search <patterns>...

       aptitude [<options>...] {add-user-tag | remove-user-tag} <tag>
		<packages>...

       aptitude [<options>...] {why | why-not} [<patterns>...] <package>

       aptitude [-S <fname>] [--autoclean-on-startup | --clean-on-startup | -i
		| -u]

       aptitude help

DESCRIPTION
       aptitude is a text-based interface to the Debian GNU/Linux package
       system.

       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 (“-”) 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 “install” command; if a package name contains a tilde character
	   (“~”) or a question mark (“?”), it will be treated as a search
	   pattern and every package matching the pattern will be installed
	   (see the section “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference
	   manual).

	   To select a particular version of the package, append “=<version>”
	   to the package name: for instance, “aptitude install apt=0.3.1”.
	   Similarly, to select a package from a particular archive, append
	   “/<archive>” to the package name: for instance, “aptitude install
	   apt/experimental”. 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 “override specifier” 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 “hold” (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.

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

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

       remove, purge, hold, unhold, keep, reinstall
	   These commands are the same as “install”, 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, “aptitude remove '~ndeity'” will remove all packages
	   whose name contains “deity”.

       markauto, unmarkauto
	   Mark packages as automatically installed or manually installed,
	   respectively. Packages are specified in exactly the same way as for
	   the “install” command. For instance, “aptitude markauto '~slibs'”
	   will mark all packages in the “libs” section as having been
	   automatically installed.

	   For more information on automatically installed packages, see the
	   section “Managing Automatically Installed Packages” 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 “install” 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
	   “=<version>” to the package name: for instance, “aptitude
	   forbid-version vim=1.2.3.broken-4”.

	   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, “aptitude install
	   <package>” will remove the ban.

       update
	   Updates the list of available packages from the apt sources (this
	   is equivalent to “apt-get update”)

       safe-upgrade
	   Upgrades installed packages to their most recent version. Installed
	   packages will not be removed unless they are unused (see the
	   section “Managing Automatically Installed Packages” 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 “new”
	   (equivalent to pressing “f” 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, “aptitude search '~N' edit” will
	   list all “new” packages and all packages whose name contains
	   “edit”. For more information on search patterns, see the section
	   “Search Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual.

	       Note
	       In the example above, “aptitude search '~N' edit” has two
	       arguments after search and thus is searching for two patterns:
	       “~N” and “edit”. As described in the search pattern reference,
	       a single pattern composed of two sub-patterns separated by a
	       space (such as “~N edit”) matches only if both patterns match.
	       Thus, the command “aptitude search '~N edit'” will only show
	       “new” packages whose name contains “edit”.
	   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 “Accessing Package Information” 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, listed
	   following the search command. If a package name contains a tilde
	   character (“~”) or a question mark (“?”), it will be treated as a
	   search pattern and all matching packages will be displayed (see the
	   section “Search Patterns” 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 “candidate
	   version” (the version that “aptitude install” 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 (“~”) or a question
	   mark (“?”), it will be treated as a search pattern and all matching
	   versions will be displayed (see the section “Search Patterns” 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 (“~”) or question mark
	   (“?”), 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 “Search Patterns” 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 (“~”) or a question mark (“?”), in which case they
	   are treated as search patterns (see the section “Search Patterns”
	   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,
	       “aptitude why-not D” will not produce the answer “A depends on
	       B, B conflicts with C, and D depends on C”.
	   By default aptitude outputs only the “most installed, strongest,
	   tightest, shortest” 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 “aptitude install” 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 (“~”) or a
	   question mark (“?”), it will be treated as a search pattern and all
	   the matching packages will be downloaded (see the section “Search
	   Patterns” in the aptitude reference manual).

	   By default, the version which would be installed with “aptitude
	   install” 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 “Search Patterns” 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 “Search Patterns” 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 “columns”. 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 “aptitude search
	   -F '%p %V' --disable-columns libedataserver” 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 “%p %V %v” for
	   <format> will display a package's name, followed by its currently
	   installed version and its available version (see the section
	   “Customizing how packages are displayed” 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
	   “full” resolver to solve them. Unlike the “safe” 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. The safe-upgrade
	   command never uses the full resolver and does not accept the
	   --full-resolver option.

       --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
	       (“stable”, “unstable”, 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 “-”, 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 “safe” 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 “installsize”
	   for <order> will list packages in order according to their size
	   when installed (see the section “Customizing how packages are
	   sorted” 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
	   “Configuration file reference” 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 “true” (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 “unused”, see
	   the section “Managing Automatically Installed Packages” 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::InstallRecommends.

       -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 “Search Patterns”
	   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 “safe”
	   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 “safe” 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 “aptitude why” to summarize each dependency
	   chain that it outputs, rather than displaying it in long form. If
	   this option is present and <MODE> is not “no-summary”, 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 10. 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, “aptitude -t experimental ...”  will install packages
	   from the experimental distribution unless you specify otherwise.
	   For the command-line actions “changelog”, “download”, and “show”,
	   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 “yes”. In particular, suppresses the prompt that appears
	   when installing, upgrading, or removing packages. Prompts for
	   “dangerous” 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
	   “--autoclean-on-startup”, “-i”, or “-u” 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
	   “--autoclean-on-startup”, “-i”, or “-u” at the same time.

       -i
	   Displays a download preview when the program starts (equivalent to
	   starting the program and immediately pressing “g”). You cannot use
	   this option and “--autoclean-on-startup”, “--clean-on-startup”, or
	   “-u” 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 “--autoclean-on-startup”,
	   “--clean-on-startup”, or “-i” 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 “aptitude changelog” 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>

AUTHOR
       Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org>
	   Author.

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.

aptitude 0.6.8.2		  02/17/2014			   APTITUDE(8)
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