According to http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ch-pkgtools.en.html <snip> 'It is important to understand that the higher level package management tools such as aptitude or dselect rely on apt which, itself, relies on dpkg to manage the packages in the system.' </snip>
If I read this right, any software package 'installed' via aptitude / apt should be listed by dpkg. At least on a Debian based machine. I did qualify 'installed' because there are several programs and packages you simply unzip in a folder of choice and execute. Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird on Debian Lenny / Squeeze / Wheezy / SID being two prime examples of unzip and execute. Because they are not handled through a 'package manager' nobody would know of their existence. Joseph Hume F1 for HELP On 02/24/2012 11:35 PM, wes wrote: >> >> Explain why I should not expect apt to know about all packages >> installed on the computer. > > I don't know if I can, with any degree of sanity. If there were only one > package manager, this wouldn't be a problem. Different package managers > exist for a reason - no comment on whether this is a GOOD reason or not. > > You see, in my silly way I assumed that >> whenever a package was installed, regardless of what package manager >> installed it, it would then be listed in a central database file of >> installed apps. > > This is a fictional item. > > Thus, all package managers would know about it. > > > Package managers maintain their own lists of things they've installed. it > wouldn't really be reasonable to expect one package manager to stay up to > date on all the latest from all the other managers. And then there's the > problem of applications installed without the use of a package manager. > Package managers are different for the same reason that different > distributions of Linux are different. > > The >> whole operating system would know about it. Menu editors would know >> about it. > > The "operating system" doesn't know or care about any packages that are > installed. It's not like there is a central "registry" where all the info > about everything is stored. This is why package managers were invented to > begin with. > > Even (gasp!) the user of the computer would be able to find >> out about it. > > I agree, the user is a very hard problem to solve. > > There would be no confusion and fragmentation of function. > Welcome to real life. > > >> I don't doubt the truth of what you say. I just think that a package >> manager that is not aware of all packages installed on the system is a >> fail. >> > Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Maybe you expect too much. > > -wes > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
