Re: Mention depends, rdepends & policy subcommands in apt man page
On Mon, Dec 09, 2019 at 08:10:04AM +0000, Vipul wrote:
> > apt -h:
> > | Most used commands:
>
> Indeed, subcommands which are mentioned in apt man page are most
> frequently used subcommands, and a normal user don't need to know more
> that, for basic package operations. But, sometimes user also encounters
> to command like "apt depends/rdepends/policy <package>"; since, man page
> is the first place where, users look for help.
>
>
> > There might be a point in at least mentioning the other commands in the
> > manpage and refer to the manpages they are described in like:
> > depends, rdepends, policy, …: apt-cache(8)
> > source, download, changelog, build-dep, …: apt-get(8)
>
> So in my humble opinion, it would be a great idea to mention these
> subcommands in man page, in above form, or at least some information,
> where user can look more details about it.
I disagree strongly, for {r,}depends. These commands are not useful for
end-users, or anyone really. Nobody should be using them, they're like
dotty or xvgc or showpkg. rdepends is particularly terrible - it does not
show reverse Depends, but also Recommends and other stuff, but does not tell
you what is what - do not use it. just do not use it.
I do like policy, as it gives me a good overview of all available versions
and their priorities. apt list -a helps with the former, but there's no
alternative for the latter.
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