maemo.org - Talk - [Announce] Aptly Package Manager

What is this?
Aptly is a python script that wraps the functions of apt and dpkg into a single tool. I wrote it because I got tired of having to swap between apt-cache, apt-get, and dpkg for doing similar tasks. Also coming from a different distribution, I would constantly find myself mixing the tools different syntaxes (eg. apt-get install vs dpkg -i).

How is it better?

Install local (*.deb) and remote packages with dependency handling for both.
Commands can be chained (eg. 'apt-get update && apt-get install <package>' becomes 'aptly update install <package')
Can run like any other command line program or in interactive mode (details below)
Can download packages to an alternate cache directory to avoid filling up rootfs

Why another thread?
I started working on this back in December and abandoned it around January. I recently got inspired to work on it again, and decided to re-write it from the ground up.

Technically speaking, it is a completely different program, but the goals are identical. It's hard to convey that through a date-based versioning scheme, though. Plus, this would be the first version to ever be promoted to Extras-Testing, and thus it seemed appropriate to announce.

What is interactive mode?
While aptly can be run like apt-get:

Code:

#> aptly install fmms

It is also possible to run aptly interactively:

Code:

#> aptly

<aptly> install fmms

...

<aptly> quit

#>

The primary benefit of running interactively is that you may want to do numerous things but not want to chain a bunch of commands together.

Are there any more planned features?
Of course! I plan to add interactive searching, package inspection, and a few other things. If you have requests, let them be heard, but please note the following:

I'm not going back to a -command style syntax, though I'm thinking about implementing an alias command that will allow you to do something pretty close.
Unless you have implementation details, do not request to have aptly automatically run as root. I would like to implement this, but haven't found a good way to do so (at least, not on the N900).
There will NOT be a GTK+/Qt interface written for this.
Please read previous comments. I will make a conscience effort to address all concerns, but duplicates will be ignored. You might say you don't have the time to read the thread, but I don't have the time to reply to something that has already been addressed.

What does it look like?
A quick video is here (still processing). For screenshots, see attached image.