Provided by: cupt_2.10.4+nmu1build1_amd64 
NAME
cupt_tutorial - tutorial for cupt package manager
PREFACE
Abstract
Cupt is a high-level package manager for Debian and Debian-derived OSes, with dpkg(1) as a back-end.
The aim of this manual is to describe the all features Cupt package manager has to manage the system,
from the most basics to very advanced tuning. Please submit your proposals/patches when you see some use
case is not covered.
This manual was written for the second major version of Cupt (2.x branch).
Disadvantages and advantages
You might not want to use Cupt, because:
• Cupt is "unofficial" package manager. Currently, nothing in Debian ecosystem uses Cupt. It also
means you won't get a support for it on most of Debian resources (you can however file bugs or
join IRC channel, see cupt(1)/Reporting).
• Cupt is not very well tested by users yet. Its userbase is relatively small. However, you are
invited to test it and increase the number of users.
• Some features which are present in other high-level package managers are missing.
Among them: multiarch, GUI and TUI interfaces, cdrom:// URI download method, repositories
without a Release file, integration with cron(8). And there are probably many more.
You might want to use Cupt to have these, to my best knowledge, unique features:
• integration with debdelta (binary package deltas)
• synchronization by source versions
• strict, full-case, configurable problem resolver
• full tree errors for unresolvable dependency problems
• package manager shell
• satisfy subcommand
• changeset-based system modifications for systems with low free disk space
• option name checker (for the 'cupt::*' option family)
• dpkg action sequences with heuristics to make an average number of packages in interim states
low
Also, one of Cupt's targets is to have zero non-wishlist bugs. You might want to try it if you
encountered a bug in other package manager(s).
Infrastructure
Out of existing APT infrastructure, Cupt uses (and shares):
• remote repositories and sources.list(5)
• ".deb" archives' cache
• configuration (apt.conf(5))
• preferences (apt_preferences(5))
• database of automatically installed packages
The following infrastructure items are Cupt-specific:
• local cache of repository metadata (since version 2.1.0)
• Cupt-specific configuration (cupt.conf(5))
• system snapshots
Getting started
To start working with Cupt just install it using any present package manager (for example, apt-get
install cupt or aptitude install cupt) and run cupt update afterwards.
It should be safe to co-use Cupt and any APT-based package managers.
When using commands that modify a system, you have to either execute cupt with root privileges or supply
--simulate (or -s) option.
Use cupt help to get a list of subcommands and their short descriptions.
BASICS
The debian system as Cupt sees it
Cupt package manager sees the Debian system as a set of installed packages and repositories of available
packages.
Each binary package has zero, one or more versions, of which zero or one versions may be installed.
Any installed package may be marked as automatically installed, it means that user didn't ask for this
package to be installed, but it is needed to satisfy some dependency. Packages which are not
automatically installed are manually installed.
Available versions (including installed one) of the binary package have unique version strings. Since
Cupt 2.6, Cupt-specific version string suffixes (for example, ^installed or ^dhs0) may be applied. More
details on this here.
Errors and warnings
Cupt uses three types of output to user: information, warnings and errors.
All warning messages are prepended with W:. They mean non-critical errors, which may be, depending on the
situation, real errors or things to ignore.
All error messages are prepended with E:. Most of errors block the executing of the program, but not all.
Errors and warnings are written to the standard error.
All other messages are the information for the user. They are written to standard output.
Exploring the system
what packages are installed?
cupt pkgnames --installed-only
gives you the list, one package name per line. You can also use
dpkg -l | grep "^ii"
for more detailed information.
getting information about an installed package
dpkg -s package_name
or
cupt show --installed-only package_name
A second command is preferable, for example, when you want to know is this package automatically
installed or not.
details of available package versions
To show a default package version:
cupt show package_name
Example: cupt show dpkg
To show all available package versions:
cupt show --all-versions package_name
If you want to see a Debian changelog for a package, use the subcommand changelog.
Example: cupt changelog exim4
If you want to see a Debian copyright file a for a package, use the subcommand copyright.
Example: cupt copyright exim4
Note: Cupt can show changelogs and copyrights either for installed packages, or for packages available in
official repositories in Debian or Ubuntu.
searching for a package
To search for a package, specify one or more regular expressions as arguments:
cupt search keyword1 keyword2 ... keywordN
Example: you want to find a Qt-based audio player:
cupt search audio qt player: found qmmp.
cupt search music qt player: found also amarok.
Another example: you want to find GTK+-related Perl modules:
cupt search --names-only "gtk.*perl"
Updating repository metadata
To update repository medadata, use
cupt update
It's recommended to update metadata every time before you install or upgrade packages.
Note: Cupt downloads quite a many files to update repository metadata. Some files may be downloaded in
2-3 different ways (like indexes) or are not so important (like translations for package descriptions).
You may see some warnings, but if you don't see an error message like
E: there were errors while downloading release and index data
, the process overall went fine. You can also check program exit code.
Modifying the system
package actions terminology
When some package is changing its state, Cupt calls the action:
install
when a package which wasn't installed is now going to be installed
remove
when a package will be removed
upgrade
when a new (bigger) version of the already installed package is to be installed
downgrade
when an old (more less) version of the already installed package is to be installed
purge
when a package and its configuration files will be removed
action preview prompt
An example of action preview prompt:
$ cupt install kdm akregator exim4
The following packages will be installed:
exim4 exim4-base exim4-config exim4-daemon-light
The following packages will be upgraded:
kde-window-manager kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data
kdebase-workspace-kgreet-plugins kdm ksysguard ksysguardd libkdecorations4
libkephal4abi1 libkscreensaver5 libksgrd4 libksignalplotter4
libkwineffects1abi1 libkworkspace4 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
libplasmaclock4abi1 libplasmagenericshell4 libprocesscore4abi1 libprocessui4a
libsolidcontrol4abi1 libsolidcontrolifaces4abi1 libtaskmanager4abi1
libweather-ion6 plasma-dataengines-workspace plasma-desktop
plasma-widgets-workspace
The following packages will be removed:
libgsasl7 libntlm0 msmtp msmtp-mta
Action summary:
1 manually installed and 3 automatically installed packages will be installed
1 manually installed and 25 automatically installed packages will be upgraded
1 manually installed and 3 automatically installed packages will be removed
Need to get 25.7MiB/83.4MiB of archives. After unpacking 3512KiB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q/a/?]
In the output above you can see: lists of packages to change the state, the summary of planned changes,
the total download amount of packages (83.4MiB), the download amount considering the cache of already
downloaded archives (25.7MiB), an estimate of difference in disk usage after the actions (+3512KiB), a
user prompt what to do.
The following answers to a user prompt are available:
y
accept a solution, i.e. proceed with it
n
decline a solution, i.e. ask to find another solution
q
don't do anything, quit immediately
?
output a short help about available answers
a
explained here
installing packages
To install a package:
cupt install package_name
Example: cupt install exim4
To install several packages:
cupt install package_name_1 package_name_2 ... package_name_N
Example: cupt install exim4 kvirc kdm
upgrading packages
To upgrade one or more installed packages, use the same commands as for installing packages.
removing packages
To remove a package:
cupt remove package_name
Example:
cupt remove gdb
To remove several packages:
cupt remove package_name_1 package_name_2 ... package_name_N
Example:
cupt remove gdb kvirc exim4
upgrading the whole system
To upgrade as many packages as possible:
cupt full-upgrade
In the mode above, Cupt will even consider removing manually installed packages. If you want to restrict
removing manually installed packages, do
cupt full-upgrade --no-remove
Or, shorter:
cupt safe-upgrade
There is the third upgrade mode, which is to be used for upgrades to the next major distribution
releases:
cupt dist-upgrade
This subcommand upgrades Cupt itself and dpkg at first, and then calls new version of itself to upgrade
the rest.
purging packages
To purge a package, i.e. remove a package along with its configuration files and maybe some dynamically
generated or runtime files:
cupt remove --purge package_name
Or:
cupt purge package_name
To purge several packages:
cupt purge package_name_1 package_name_2 ... package_name_N
Example:
cupt purge gdb
Package archives cleaning
Whenever Cupt needs to install, upgrade or downgrade packages it downloads binary package archives (.deb
files) to an archive cache. These archives are not removed after the first usage so they can be reused
later.
If you do upgrades often, it's a good idea to periodically delete old package archives to save the disk
space. It's done by the subcommand autoclean:
cupt autoclean
The command above will delete all package archives which do not belong to currently available
repositories.
If you want to remove all archives from the cache, do
cupt clean
Both subcommands above will also remove the partially downloaded archive files which may stay around
after the terminated download operations.
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL
Working with multiple package versions
changing repositories
Cupt uses the same repository list format as APT. See sources.list(5).
release information
Each version of a certain package has one or more sources where it comes from.
Each source consists of download information and a subrepository information, or release information.
The following properties belong to release information:
basic URI
a common prefix of URIs for all files which come for this (sub)repository (also referred as origin
in APT documentation)
Example: http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian
archive
a repository archive name, for example testing or stable
codename
a release code name, for example wheezy or sid
component
a subrepository component name, for example main or non-free
vendor
a vendor name, for example: Debian
label
a vendor-provided label, for example: Debian-Security
version
a release version, for example: 6.0
description
a repository description line
Any of properties above may be empty.
To see available releases:
cupt policy
Example:
$ cupt policy
Package files:
/var/lib/dpkg/status installed/: o=dpkg,a=installed,l=,c=,v=,n=now
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian stable/main: o=Debian,a=stable,l=Debian,c=main,v=6.0,n=squeeze
http://security.debian.org stable/main: o=Debian,a=stable,l=Debian-Security,c=main,v=6.0,n=squeeze
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian squeeze-updates/main: o=Debian,a=squeeze-updates,l=Debian,c=main,v=,n=squeeze-updates
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian testing/main: o=Debian,a=testing,l=Debian,c=main,v=,n=wheezy
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian testing/contrib: o=Debian,a=testing,l=Debian,c=contrib,v=,n=wheezy
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian testing/non-free: o=Debian,a=testing,l=Debian,c=non-free,v=,n=wheezy
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian unstable/main: o=Debian,a=unstable,l=Debian,c=main,v=,n=sid
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian unstable/contrib: o=Debian,a=unstable,l=Debian,c=contrib,v=,n=sid
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian unstable/non-free: o=Debian,a=unstable,l=Debian,c=non-free,v=,n=sid
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian experimental/main: o=Debian,a=experimental,l=Debian,c=main,v=,n=experimental
The format of lines above:
basic_URI archive/component: o=vendor,a=archive,l=label,c=component,v=version,n=codename
Note that "installed" release have the archive installed and the codename now.
To see the release descriptions of releases a version belongs to:
cupt show --with-release-info package_name
Example:
cupt show --with-release-info dpkg
version pinning system
Each package version has a pin, an integer number.
Amongst all versions of the same binary package, the one who has maximal pin is policy, or preferred
version. It's also candidate in APT terminology and in Cupt before 2.3.
Cupt assigns pins to package versions according to the APT documentation (apt_preferences(5)). Plus, it
adds:
• 1 to pin of every version which has a signed source
• downgrade penalty (the option cupt::cache::pin::addendums::downgrade)
• hold penalty for packages that are 'on hold' (the option cupt::cache::pin::addendums::hold)
• not automatic penalty for versions which come solely from sources marked as not automatic, for
example, from Debian experimental distribution (the option
cupt::cache::pin::addendums::not-automatic)
Note that sometimes the way APT assigns pins to versions is not the way described in its documentation,
so Cupt's pins (modulo Cupt-specific additions described above) are not necessarily identical to what APT
produces.
what package versions are available?
cupt policy package_name
Example:
$ cupt policy dpkg
dpkg:
Installed: 1.15.5.6
Preferred: 1.15.8.10
Version table:
1.15.8.10 991
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian testing/main (signed)
http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian unstable/main (unsigned)
http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian testing/main (signed)
http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian unstable/main (signed)
*** 1.15.5.6 100
/var/lib/dpkg/status installed/ (unsigned)
1.14.31 -1499
http://security.debian.org oldstable/main (signed)
In the output above we can see: installed version ('1.15.5.6'), preferred version ('1.15.8.10') and a
version table. In total, 3 versions of dpkg are available.
For each version in version table we can see (on example of '1.15.8.10'): a version pin ('991'), a list
of repositories where this version is available.
Each repository line is:
basic_URI archive/component (signedness)
The repository marked as signed if it has a valid and verified cryptographic signature, and unsigned
otherwise.
version string id suffixes
Starting with version 2.6, Cupt's behavior regarding merging versions having the same version string
changed.
Firstly, Cupt now never merges installed versions with versions from repositories, since dpkg provides no
way to know if the installed version is the same as the version from repository. All version strings of
installed versions now have ^installed suffix, for example 1.2.4^installed.
Secondly, if same versions from different repositories have different hash sums, instead of discarding
everything but first version Cupt now append suffixes like ^dhs0 or ^dhs315 to version strings of
non-first versions, for example 1.2.4^dhs0.
selecting binary package versions
When there are more than one version for a package, Cupt provides following ways to select a version of
the binary package in the arguments of the various subcommands:
policy version
to select a policy version, just specify a package name alone.
Example:
cupt show dpkg
specific version
to select an exact version of the package, use the suffix =version.
Example:
cupt show dpkg=1.15.8.10
by archive or codename
to select a version in release with known archive or codename, use the suffix /archive or
/codename.
Examples:
cupt show dpkg/unstable
cupt show dpkg/sid
The syntax described above is known as binary package version expression. In the cupt(1) manual page all
subcommands which accept this syntax are clearly marked as such.
Combining multiple version arguments
Many subcommands accept several arguments of the same meaning. Examples:
cupt show dpkg cupt libpqxx3=3.0.2-1
cupt install youtube-dl clive/stable
cupt remove libabc-dev libefg-dev libxyz-dev
cupt policy perl perl-base
You can use wildcards * and ? to select multiple package names. Examples:
• cupt show perl-b*
Shows policy versions of packages which names start with perl-b, for example perl-base and
perl-byacc.
• cupt show perl-*/experimental
Shows experimental version of packages which names start with perl- and which have experimental
versions. In other words, packages without a version in experimental distribution won't be
selected.
• cupt show *=2.0.0-1 | grep Package
List packages which have a version 2.0.0-1. Using wildcards with versions is maybe useless, but
possible.
• cupt full-upgrade xserver-xorg-*/installed
Perform a full upgrade but keep all installed packages with names starting with xserver-xorg-
at their current versions.
• cupt show ?aff*
Show policy versions of packages with names which have 'a', 'f' and 'f' on 2nd, 3rd and 4th
positions (starting with 1st), respectively.
Conditional installation
Starting with Cupt 2.4, there is a special subcommand iii ("install if installed") for installing new
versions of already installed packages while not touching uninstalled packages. It behaves like install,
but ignores arguments corresponding to not installed packages.
Examples:
1. You want to upgrade a certain package (say, git) on multiple machines, where some of these
machines have that package installed and some not. If you have a mechanism to send one command
to all machines (say, ssh multiplexer), you can send the command
cupt update && cupt iii git
The second part of the command will do nothing on the machines where git is not installed and
will install the preferred version of the package git where this package was installed.
2. You have an X server and some X video drivers installed, and you want to upgrade all installed
drivers. For that you can do
cupt iii xserver-xorg-video*
Overriding package management actions
Action override options
You can use special positional options --install, --remove, --purge, --iii, --satisfy, --unsatisfy,
--markauto, --unmarkauto, --asauto=yes, --asauto=no, --asauto=default to override the specified action
until the end of the arguments or the next action override option.
Examples:
• cupt remove msmtp-mta --install exim4-daemon-light esmtp
Install packages exim4-daemon-light and esmtp, remove the package msmtp-mta.
• cupt install exim4-daemon-light --remove msmtp-mta esmtp
Install the package exim4-daemon-light, remove packages msmtp-mta and esmtp.
• cupt purge libkate1 --remove libass4 --purge libdirac-decoder0
Remove the package libass4, purge packages libkate1 and libdirac-decoder0.
• cupt install lightspark --remove gnash --satisfy "iceweasel (>= 5)"
Install the package lightspark, remove the packae gnash, and make sure that iceweasel (at least
of version 5) is installed.
• cupt install sieve-connect --unsatisfy "iceweasel (<< 3.5.20)"
Install the package sieve-connect, upgrade or remove the package iceweasel if it is installed
and has the version lower than 3.5.20.
• cupt install libv4l-0 cupt --iii libreadline7 vlc*
Install packages libv4l-0 and cupt, install the preferred version of libreadline7 if it's
installed already, install the preferred versions of packages which names start with vlc and
which are installed already .
• cupt remove youtube-dl --install clive --satisfy "iceweasel (>= 4)" --purge cvs subversion
--install git --unsatisfy "xinput (<< 1.5)"
Install packages clive and git, remove the package youtube-dl, purge packages cvs and
subversion, make sure that the package iceweasel of version 4 or higher is installed, make sure
that the package xinput either is not installed or has the version 1.5 or higher.
• cupt install vlc --markauto xine
Install the package vlc and mark the package xine automatically installed.
• cupt remove bindfs --unmarkauto fuse
You have a package bindfs installed and now don't need it anymore. cupt remove bindfs shows
that the package fuse will be removed as it was a dependency of bindfs; you however decide you
want to keep it in the system and run the command above.
• cupt install mumble libgeoip1 geoip-dbg
(in this and following examples we suppose that currently mumble is manually installed,
libgeoip1 is automatically installed, geoip-dbg is not installed)
geoip-dbg will be manually installed.
• cupt install --asauto=yes mumble libgeoip1 geoip-dbg
mumble will be marked as automatically installed, geoip-dbg will be automatically installed
• cupt install --asauto=no mumble libgeoip1 geoip-dbg
libgeoip1 will be marked as manually installed, geoip-dbg will be manually installed
• cupt install --asauto=yes mumble --asauto=default libgeoip1 geoip-dbg
mumble will be marked as automatically installed, geoip-dbg will be manually installed
• cupt satisfy --asauto=no "iptables (>= 1.4)"
(assuming iptables package not installed) if possible, install enough recent (1.4 or later)
version of iptables; iptables itself will be marked as manually installed, its possible
dependencies as automatically installed
Package name suffixes
Alternatively, you can supply some suffixes to package names, that suffixes override the current action
for the suffixed package(s) only:
+
"install this"
-
"remove this"
You can use the + modifier in subcommands: remove, purge. Examples:
cupt remove youtube-dl clive+: remove youtube-dl, install clive
cupt purge exim4 msmtp-mta+ mutt/experimental+: remove exim4 along with its configuration files, install
msmtp-mta and mutt (from experimental)
You can use the - modifier in the install and *-upgrade-like subcommands. Examples:
cupt install gnuchess/unstable gnome-chess pychess-: install gnuchess (from unstable), gnome-chess,
remove pychess
cupt full-upgrade cvs-:
a) cvs is installed -> do an upgrade with removing cvs
b) cvs is not installed -> do an upgrade, keeping cvs uninstalled
Using package archive deltas
Cupt has an integration (through a special download method) with debdelta(1). To make Cupt try to
download archive deltas before downloading full archives, just install the package debdelta and that's
it. No manual invocation of debdelta utilities is needed.
See more about debdelta project here: http://debdelta.debian.net/.
Listing dependency information
To list the dependencies of one or more package versions, use the subcommand depends:
cupt depends libc6/testing arora/unstable
If you don't want to see Recommends there, use --important:
cupt depends --important libc6/testing
If, on the contrary, you want to see even Suggests, use --with-suggests:
cupt depends --with-suggests libc6/testing
You can also list selected relations recursively, using --recurse:
cupt depends --recurse dpkg
If you want to see a reverse dependencies of some version, use the subcommand rdepends:
cupt rdepends xz-utils
All the command switches described here are also applicable to rdepends as well.
Action preview prompt (extended)
summary
Starting with Cupt 2.3 an action summary is shown by default.
To remove it, use --no-summary command-line option. To remove it permanently, set the configuration
option cupt::console::actions-preview::show-summary to no.
Alternatively, you may want to hide details and view only a summary, this can be achieved by specifying
--summary-only command-line option. This option can be useful in a conjunction with --simulate
command-line option to have a quick preview.
detailed solution preview
You can request more information to show in the action preview prompt:
• package versions
Use --show-versions (-V) option. Example:
$ cupt install gcc-4.6 -V
The following packages will be installed:
cpp-4.6 [4.6.0~rc1-1]
gcc-4.6 [4.6.0~rc1-1]
gcc-4.6-base [4.6.0~rc1-1]
libppl-c4 [0.11.2-3]
libppl9 [0.11.2-3]
libpwl5 [0.11.2-3]
libquadmath0 [4.6.0~rc1-1]
The following packages will be upgraded:
binutils [2.20.1-15 -> 2.21.0.20110302-2]
libcloog-ppl0 [0.15.9-2 -> 0.15.9-3]
libgcc1 [1:4.5.2-1 -> 1:4.6.0~rc1-1]
libgomp1 [4.5.2-1 -> 4.6.0~rc1-1]
• by-package disk usage changes
Use --show-size-changes (-Z) option. Example:
$ cupt install gcc-4.6 -Z
The following packages will be installed:
cpp-4.6 <+10.6MiB>
gcc-4.6 <+15.0MiB>
gcc-4.6-base <+192KiB>
libppl-c4 <+4264KiB>
libppl9 <+1176KiB>
libpwl5 <+100KiB>
libquadmath0 <+496KiB>
The following packages will be upgraded:
binutils <+1300KiB>
libcloog-ppl0
libgcc1 <+8192B>
libgomp1 <+16.0KiB>
• release archives
Use --show-archives (-A) option. Example:
$ cupt install gcc-4.7 -A
The following packages will be installed:
cpp-4.7 [(experimental)]
gcc-4.7 [(experimental)]
gcc-4.7-base [(experimental)]
libitm1 [(experimental)]
The following packages will be upgraded:
libgcc1 [(installed,testing) -> (experimental)]
libgomp1 [(installed,testing) -> (experimental)]
libquadmath0 [(installed,testing) -> (experimental)]
• release codenames
Use --show-codenames (-N) option. Example:
$ cupt install libstreams0 -N
The following packages will be upgraded:
libstreamanalyzer0 [(now,squeeze) -> (wheezy,sid)]
libstreams0 [(now,squeeze) -> (wheezy,sid)]
• release components
Use --show-components (-C) option. It's mostly useful in conjunction with --show-codenames or
--show-archives. Example:
$ cupt install libstreams0 -CN
The following packages will be upgraded:
libstreamanalyzer0 [(now,squeeze/main) -> (wheezy/main,sid/main)]
libstreams0 [(now,squeeze/main) -> (wheezy/main,sid/main)]
• release vendors
Use --show-vendors (-O) option. Useful if you have repositories of more than one vendor and
usually in conjunction with -V, -A or -N. Example:
$ cupt install libstreams0 -VNO
The following packages will be upgraded:
libstreamanalyzer0 [0.7.2-1+b1(dpkg:now,Debian:squeeze) -> 0.7.7-1(Debian:wheezy,Debian:sid)]
libstreams0 [0.7.2-1+b1(dpkg:now,Debian:squeeze) -> 0.7.7-1(Debian:wheezy,Debian:sid)]
• change reasons
To show, why resolver did the change(s), use --show-reasons (-D) option. Example:
$ cupt install gcc-4.6 -D
The following packages will be installed:
cpp-4.6
reason: gcc-4.6 4.6.0~rc1-1 depends on 'cpp-4.6 (= 4.6.0~rc1-1)'
gcc-4.6
reason: user request
gcc-4.6-base
reason: cpp-4.6 4.6.0~rc1-1 depends on 'gcc-4.6-base (= 4.6.0~rc1-1)'
libppl-c4
reason: gcc-4.6 4.6.0~rc1-1 depends on 'libppl-c4'
libppl9
reason: gcc-4.6 4.6.0~rc1-1 depends on 'libppl9'
libpwl5
reason: libppl-c4 0.11.2-3 depends on 'libpwl5'
libquadmath0
reason: gcc-4.6 4.6.0~rc1-1 depends on 'libquadmath0 (>= 4.6.0~rc1-1)'
The following packages will be upgraded:
binutils
reason: gcc-4.6 4.6.0~rc1-1 depends on 'binutils (>= 2.21~)'
libcloog-ppl0
reason: gcc-4.6 4.6.0~rc1-1 depends on 'libcloog-ppl0 (>= 0.15.9-3~)'
libgcc1
reason: gcc-4.6 4.6.0~rc1-1 depends on 'libgcc1 (>= 1:4.6.0~rc1-1)'
libgomp1
reason: gcc-4.6 4.6.0~rc1-1 depends on 'libgomp1 (>= 4.6.0~rc1-1)'
• show not preferred versions
To show packages which will have a not preferred version (which usually means not (enough)
upgraded), use --show-not-preferred option.
This is enabled for upgrades by default.
For non-upgrade example, the next command may be used to determine the installed packages which
have a better candidate (again, usually that means they can be upgraded):
$ cupt install --no-auto-remove --show-not-preferred -V
The following packages will have a not preferred version:
comerr-dev [2.1-1.41.12-4], preferred: 2.1-1.41.12-4stable1
e2fslibs [1.41.12-4], preferred: 1.41.12-4stable1
e2fsprogs [1.41.12-4], preferred: 1.41.12-4stable1
libcomerr2 [1.41.12-4], preferred: 1.41.12-4stable1
libkadm5clnt-mit7 [1.8.3+dfsg-4], preferred: 1.8.3+dfsg-4squeeze2
libkadm5srv-mit7 [1.8.3+dfsg-4], preferred: 1.8.3+dfsg-4squeeze2
libkdb5-4 [1.8.3+dfsg-4], preferred: 1.8.3+dfsg-4squeeze2
libss2 [1.41.12-4], preferred: 1.41.12-4stable1
linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64 [2.6.32-34squeeze1], preferred: 2.6.32-38
openssh-client [1:5.5p1-6], preferred: 1:5.5p1-6+squeeze1
tzdata [2011g-1], preferred: 2011k-0squeeze1
You can also combine them.
reason chain
Instead of displaying the reasons for all changed packages, starting with Cupt 2.6 you can request the
reason chain for the specific package. To do this, use the choice rc. Example:
$ cupt -s install exim4-daemon-light
The following packages will be installed:
bsd-mailx exim4-base exim4-config exim4-daemon-light liblockfile-bin liblockfile1
The following packages will be removed:
msmtp-mta
The following packages are no longer needed and thus will be auto-removed:
libgsasl7 libntlm0 msmtp
Action summary:
1 manually installed and 5 automatically installed packages will be installed
1 manually installed packages will be removed
3 automatically installed packages are no longer needed and thus will be auto-removed
Need to get 2241KiB/2241KiB of archives. After unpacking 3006KiB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q/a/rc/?] rc
Enter a binary package name to show reason chain for (empty to cancel): bsd-mailx
bsd-mailx: exim4-base 4.80-6 recommends 'mailx'
exim4-base: exim4-daemon-light 4.80-6 depends on 'exim4-base (>= 4.80)'
exim4-daemon-light: user request
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q/a/rc/?] rc
Enter a binary package name to show reason chain for (empty to cancel): msmtp-mta
msmtp-mta: exim4-daemon-light 4.80-6 conflicts with 'mail-transport-agent'
exim4-daemon-light: user request
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q/a/rc/?]
specifying more package expression arguments
In a solution preview (action preview prompt) you have an ability to specify more package expressions and
a restart a resolving process. To do this, use the choice a. Example:
$ cupt install gnash
The following packages will be installed:
dmsetup dosfstools freepats fuse-utils gconf2-common gnash gnash-common
gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad
gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gvfs hdparm libass4 libatasmart4
libboost-thread1.42.0 libcdaudio1 libcelt0-0 libexempi3 libexif12 libfftw3-3
libflite1 libfuse2 libgconf2-4 libgdu0 libgme0 libgnome-keyring0 libgsf-1-114
libgsf-1-common libgtkglext1 libgudev-1.0-0 libidl0 libiptcdata0 libkate1
liblvm2app2.2 libmimic0 libmms0 libmodplug1 libmusicbrainz4c2a libntfs-3g75
libntfs10 libofa0 libopenspc0 liborbit2 liborc-0.4-0 libparted0debian1
libpolkit-backend-1-0 libraptor2-0 librasqal3 librsvg2-2 libsgutils2-2
libslv2-9 libsoundtouch0 libvisual-0.4-0 libvisual-0.4-plugins libwildmidi1
libyajl1 libzbar0 mtools ntfs-3g ntfsprogs policykit-1 policykit-1-gnome udisks
The following packages will be upgraded:
libblkid1 libdbus-glib-1-2 libdevmapper1.02.1 libglib2.0-0
libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 libgstreamer0.10-0 libpcre3 libpolkit-agent-1-0
libpolkit-gobject-1-0 librdf0 libschroedinger-1.0-0 libudev0
The following packages will be removed:
libeggdbus-1-0 librasqal2
Need to get 62.3MiB/62.3MiB of archives. After unpacking 105MiB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q/a/?] a
Enter a package expression (empty to finish): libgnome-keyring0-
Enter a package expression (empty to finish):
The following packages will be installed:
freepats gnash gnash-common gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-base libass4
libboost-thread1.42.0 libcdaudio1 libcelt0-0 libexempi3 libexif12 libfftw3-3
libflite1 libgme0 libgsf-1-114 libgsf-1-common libgtkglext1 libgudev-1.0-0
libiptcdata0 libkate1 libmimic0 libmms0 libmodplug1 libmusicbrainz4c2a libofa0
libopenspc0 liborc-0.4-0 libraptor2-0 librasqal3 librsvg2-2 libslv2-9
libsoundtouch0 libvisual-0.4-0 libvisual-0.4-plugins libwildmidi1 libyajl1
libzbar0
The following packages will be upgraded:
libglib2.0-0 libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 libgstreamer0.10-0 libpcre3
librdf0 libschroedinger-1.0-0 libudev0
The following packages will be removed:
librasqal2
Leave the following dependencies unresolved:
gstreamer0.10-plugins-base 0.10.30-1 recommends 'gvfs'
Need to get 56.2MiB/56.2MiB of archives. After unpacking 85.6MiB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q/a/?]
The effect above is the same as if you specified
cupt install gnash libgnome-keyring0-
in the command line from the start.
Starting from Cupt 2.6 you can specify multiple expressions on the same line.
colors
Some parts of the actions preview will be colored if you enable colors by setting the option
cupt::console::use-colors to auto or yes (see cupt.conf(5)).
In the colored output different colors specify different actions types. Manually installed package names
and potentially unsafe actions have bold colors.
Starting from Cupt 2.10, colors are enabled on terminals by default (auto setting).
Adjusting configuration variables
intro
There are two types of configuration variables - regular (or scalar) and list ones. Scalar options have
a single scalar value, and list option's value is a list of strings. Modifying a scalar option means
substituting its previous value completely in favor of new specified one, modifying a list option means
adding one more string to the existing list.
Cupt has many configuration variables, some of them may be specified/overridden using command-line
switches, some needs to be modified explicitly. See the full variable list and descriptions at
cupt.conf(5).
To see the current configuration, use config-dump subcommand. Examples:
$ cupt config-dump | grep recommends
apt::install-recommends "yes";
cupt::resolver::keep-recommends "yes";
cupt::resolver::tune-score::failed-recommends "600";
$ cupt config-dump | grep "methods "
cupt::downloader::protocols::copy::methods { "file"; };
cupt::downloader::protocols::debdelta::methods { "debdelta"; };
cupt::downloader::protocols::file::methods { "file"; };
cupt::downloader::protocols::ftp::methods { "curl"; };
cupt::downloader::protocols::ftp::methods { "wget"; };
cupt::downloader::protocols::http::methods { "curl"; };
cupt::downloader::protocols::http::methods { "wget"; };
cupt::downloader::protocols::https::methods { "curl"; };
cupt::downloader::protocols::https::methods { "wget"; };
You can distinguish list options there by figure brackets around the values.
configuration sources
Cupt reads configuration in the following order:
1. from Cupt preconfiguration file (see cupt.conf(5)/cupt::directory::configuration::pre)
2. from APT configuration files (conforming to the APT documentation (apt.conf(5)))
3. from Cupt-specific configuration files (see cupt.conf(5)/cupt::directory::configuration)
4. from the command line (--option (or -o) switches and dedicated switches corresponding to
specific options)
setting options using the command line
To modify a regular option in the command line, use
-o option_name=new_value
Example:
cupt install kmail -o cupt::console::assume-yes=yes
To modify a list option (i.e. add a new string) in the command line, use
-o option_name::=added_string
Example:
cupt -s update -o "apt::update::pre-invoke::=ls /var"
You can use -o multiple times.
Automatically installed packages
view
If you want to know, is a certain package automatically installed or not, do
cupt show --installed-only package_name
Example:
cupt show --installed-only dpkg
To list manually installed packages:
cupt showauto --invert
To list automatically installed packages:
cupt showauto
change
To mark some package(s) as automatically installed, use the markauto subcommand, for example:
cupt markauto libqtcore4 udev
To mark some package(s) as manually installed, use the unmarkauto subcommand, for example:
cupt unmarkauto tar traceroute
removal
When doing installs/upgrades/etc. all newly installed packages not requested by user are marked as
automatically installed. For every package management actions Cupt's resolver can determine if some
automatically installed packages are not needed anymore. Automatically installed packages, which are no
more a part of any valuable dependency chain of manually installed packages, are deleted by default. The
names of this process is auto-removal.
If you don't want auto-removal to be performed, use --no-auto-remove switch or set the option
cupt::resolver::auto-remove to no.
Soft dependencies
All forward interdependencies between packages can be divided into two groups -- hard and soft ones.
While hard dependencies must be satisfied in order to make a system (or proposed solution) valid, soft
ones may stay unsatisfied. Hard dependencies are 'Pre-Depends', 'Depends'. Soft dependencies are
'Recommends', 'Suggests' and 'Enhances'. Cupt completely ignores 'Enhances', but can act on 'Recommends'
or 'Suggests'. All the remainder of this section is dedicated to the last two.
By default, Cupt ignores 'Suggests', but tries to, with an average priority, satisfy new dependencies in
'Recommends' and keep already satisfied 'Recommends'.
You can use the following options to change the behavior:
apt::install-recommends
set this to no to not satisfy new 'Recommends'. See also the command-line switch
--no-install-recommends.
cupt::resolver::keep-recommends
set this to no to make resolver ignore all 'Recommends'
apt::install-suggests
set this yes to make resolver try to satisfy new 'Suggests'
cupt::resolver::keep-suggests
set this to yes to make resolver try to keep already satisfied 'Suggests'
Note 1: having the option apt::install-X set to yes without cupt::resolver::keep-X set to yes as well is
useless, Cupt's native resolver will warn about it.
Note 2: even when the appropriate apt::install-X option is set, Cupt ignores not changed soft
dependencies. Say, if there is an installed package gettext of version 1.2 which Recommends: cvs, a
relation cvs is not satisfied in the system, and gettext is upgraded to a version 1.3 which also have the
same Recommends: cvs, Cupt won't try to satisfy this dependency.
Understanding package installation process
After you agree with a proposed solution (by entering a positive answer in an action preview prompt) Cupt
starts a package installation process, which is done in several phases:
1. preparation
In this phase Cupt computes the order in which dpkg(1) will called and the options to pass.
This phase may take a while for large changes.
2. downloading
In this phase Cupt downloads needed binary packages (*.deb). May be empty if no packages are
needed or all needed packages are already in the cache.
3. pre-hooks
In this phase Cupt calls registered pre-hooks (options dpkg::pre-invoke and
dpkg::pre-install-pkgs) if any. Examples of them are apt-listchanges(1), apt-listbugs(1) and
dpkg-preconfigure(1). These hooks may ask questions and cancel the whole package installation
process.
4. action themselves
In this phase Cupt calls dpkg as many times as needed to perform requested actions.
5. post-hooks
In this phase Cupt calls registered post-hooks (the option dpkg::post-invoke) if any.
Note: Cupt itself does not ask anything from the user during the package installation process. All
questions usually come from programs which Cupt calls.
Example:
1: # cupt install cmake
This is a command line.
2: Building the package cache...
3: Initializing package resolver and worker...
4: Scheduling requested actions...
5: Resolving possible unmet dependencies...
These are (optional) information messages from Cupt.
6:
7: The following 4 packages will be INSTALLED:
8:
9: libarchive1 libcurl3 libssh2-1 libxmlrpc-core-c3
10:
11: The following 2 packages will be UPGRADED:
12:
13: cmake cmake-data
14:
15: Need to get 5637KiB/6007KiB of archives. After unpacking 1963KiB will be freed.
16: Do you want to continue? [y/N/q/a/?] y
This is an action preview prompt.
17: Performing requested actions:
This is the 'preparation' phase.
18: Get:1 http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian wheezy/main,sid/main,wheezy/main,sid/main cmake-data 2.8.4+dfsg.1-2 [1224KiB]
19: Get:2 http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian wheezy/main,sid/main,wheezy/main,sid/main cmake 2.8.4+dfsg.1-2 [4102KiB]
20: Get:3 http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian wheezy/main,sid/main,wheezy/main,sid/main libarchive1 2.8.4-1 [149KiB]
21: Get:4 http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian wheezy/main,sid/main,wheezy/main,sid/main libxmlrpc-core-c3 1.16.33-2 [162KiB]
22: Fetched 5637KiB in 1s.
This is the 'downloading' phase.
23: Reading changelogs... Done
This is the 'pre-hooks' phase (namely, apt-listchanges in this case).
24: Selecting previously deselected package libarchive1.
25: (Reading database ... 94022 files and directories currently installed.)
26: Unpacking libarchive1 (from .../libarchive1_2.8.4-1_i386.deb) ...
27: Setting up libarchive1 (2.8.4-1) ...
28: Processing triggers for man-db ...
29: Selecting previously deselected package libssh2-1.
30: (Reading database ... 94034 files and directories currently installed.)
31: Unpacking libssh2-1 (from .../libssh2-1_1.2.6-1_i386.deb) ...
32: Setting up libssh2-1 (1.2.6-1) ...
33: Selecting previously deselected package libcurl3.
34: (Reading database ... 94041 files and directories currently installed.)
35: Unpacking libcurl3 (from .../libcurl3_7.21.3-1_i386.deb) ...
36: Setting up libcurl3 (7.21.3-1) ...
37: Selecting previously deselected package libxmlrpc-core-c3.
38: (Reading database ... 94058 files and directories currently installed.)
39: Unpacking libxmlrpc-core-c3 (from .../libxmlrpc-core-c3_1.16.33-2_i386.deb) ...
40: Setting up libxmlrpc-core-c3 (1.16.33-2) ...
41: (Reading database ... 94080 files and directories currently installed.)
42: Removing cmake ...
43: Processing triggers for man-db ...
44: (Reading database ... 94071 files and directories currently installed.)
45: Preparing to replace cmake-data 2.8.1-2 (using .../cmake-data_2.8.4+dfsg.1-2_all.deb) ...
46: Unpacking replacement cmake-data ...
47: Setting up cmake-data (2.8.4+dfsg.1-2) ...
48: emacsen-common: Handling install of emacsen flavor emacs
49: Processing triggers for man-db ...
50: Selecting previously deselected package cmake.
51: (Reading database ... 94087 files and directories currently installed.)
52: Unpacking cmake (from .../cmake_2.8.4+dfsg.1-2_i386.deb) ...
53: Setting up cmake (2.8.4+dfsg.1-2) ...
54: Processing triggers for man-db ...
This is the 'action themselves' phase, dpkg's output and messages from packages' maintainer scripts.
In the case the process fails at phase 'action themselves' (either due to bug in Cupt, dpkg, or
packages), you'll see some error messages from dpkg and then error messages from Cupt.
Source packages
overview
Source packages are the files from which binary packages are built. They have two major differences:
• Source packages cannot be "installed" to the system like binary packages.
• Unlike binary packages, source package consists of 3 or more files, not a single one:
• tarball(s)
one or more compressed tar(1) archives containing an upstream code
• diff
a file containing Debian changes, may be missing in the native (Debian-specific) packages
• dsc
a text file with some headers
exploring
To view a source package information:
cupt showsrc package_name
Example:
cupt showsrc cupt
You can specify more than one package, for example:
cupt showsrc sed mawk
To view available source versions, pin info and releases versions come from, use policysrc subcommand.
Its output is the same as for policy subcommand. Example:
cupt policysrc sed mawk
To download source package(s), use the source subcommand, for example:
cupt source clive youtube-dl
By default source subcommand also unpack the package so it's ready for the exploring and building. To
prevent this, use the --download-only switch. Also, you can download only one part of source package,
use switches --tar-only, --diff-only and --dsc-only for that.
satisfying build dependencies
If you want to build binary packages out of a source one, you will have to satisfy source package's build
dependencies before. Use the subcommand build-dep to do it, for example:
cupt build-dep clive
All new packages, installed by this subcommand, will be marked as automatically installed, and will be a
subject for auto-removal (#auto-removal) at next package management action.
So, the process of building binary packages out of source one may be, taking clive package as an example:
cupt source clive
cupt build-dep clive
cd clive-2.2.13 && debuild && cd ../
[...]
cupt install
The last line will remove all unneeded anymore packages (given auto-removal is turned on), including
those installed by build-dep.
selecting source package versions
You can select source package versions in two ways:
1. Provide a source package version expression. It has the same syntax as binary package version
expression, but instead of specifying a binary package name you specify a source package name.
Example:
cupt showsrc game-music-emu=0.5.5-2 gcc-defaults/experimental
2. Provide a binary package version expression, which will be converted to a source package
version expression when possible.
Example:
$ cupt show g++/experimental | head -n5
Package: g++
Version: 4:4.6.0-2exp1
Status: not installed
Source: gcc-defaults
Source version: 1.101exp1
$ cupt showsrc g++/experimental | head -n3
Package: gcc-defaults
Binary: cpp, g++, g++-multilib, gobjc, gobjc-multilib, gobjc++,
gobjc++-multilib, gfortran, gfortran-multilib, gccgo, gccgo-multilib,
libgcj-common, gcj, gij, libgcj-bc, gcj-jdk, gcj-jre-headless, gcj-jre, gcc,
gcc-multilib, gdc, gcc-spu, g++-spu, gfortran-spu
Version: 1.101exp1
Here, g++ is a binary package name and gcc-defaults is a source package name. In the second
command, as there is no source package g++, a binary package was looked up, a version
4:4.6.0-2exp1 of it was found, and then a source version was selected as if you specified
cupt showsrc gcc-defaults=1.101exp1
in the first place.
You can supply both syntaxes to all subcommands which work with source package versions, examples:
cupt build-dep clive/unstable
cupt source man-db=2.5.9-4
Package manager shell
Cupt has a shell-like environment, in which you can supply any subcommand as if you typed it in to the
command line, but without preceding cupt command name.
Example:
$ cupt shell
This is interactive shell of cupt package manager.
cupt>policy libsoprano4
libsoprano4:
Installed: 2.2.2+dfsg.1-1
Preferred: 2.3.0+dfsg.1-2
Version table:
2.3.0+dfsg.1-2 501
http://debian.org.ua/debian unstable/main (signed)
*** 2.2.2+dfsg.1-1 100
/var/lib/dpkg/status installed/ (unsigned)
2.3.0+dfsg.1-1 2
http://debian.org.ua/debian experimental/main (signed)
cupt>depends libsoprano4/experimental
libsoprano4 2.3.0+dfsg.1-1:
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5)
Depends: libclucene0ldbl (>= 0.9.20-1)
Depends: libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1)
Depends: libqt4-dbus (>= 4:4.5.2)
Depends: libqt4-network (>= 4:4.5.2)
Depends: libqt4-xml (>= 4:4.5.2)
Depends: libqtcore4 (>= 4:4.5.2)
Depends: libstdc++6 (>= 4.1.1)
Depends: soprano-daemon (= 2.3.0+dfsg.1-1)
cupt>rdepends soprano-daemon
soprano-daemon 2.3.0+dfsg.1-2:
Reverse-Depends: libsoprano4 2.3.0+dfsg.1-2: soprano-daemon (= 2.3.0+dfsg.1-2)
cupt>show soprano-daemon
Package: soprano-daemon
Version: 2.3.0+dfsg.1-2
Status: not installed
Source: soprano
Priority: optional
Section: utils
Size: 153KiB
Uncompressed size: 536KiB
Maintainer: Debian Qt/KDE Maintainers <debian-qt-kde@lists.debian.org>
Architecture: amd64
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.5), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libqt4-dbus (>= 4:4.5.2), libqt4-network (>= 4:4.5.2),
libqtcore4 (>= 4:4.5.2), libraptor1 (>= 1.4.18), librdf0 (>= 1.0.9), libsoprano4 (>= 2.3.0), libstdc++6 (>= 4.1.1)
Conflicts: libsoprano-dev (<< 2.3.0+dfsg.1-1), libsoprano4 (<< 2.3.0+dfsg.1-1)
Replaces: libsoprano-dev (<< 2.3.0+dfsg.1-1), libsoprano4 (<< 2.3.0+dfsg.1-1)
URI: http://debian.org.ua/debian/pool/main/s/soprano/soprano-daemon_2.3.0+dfsg.1-2_amd64.deb
MD5: af29b39a741d9a52de91c8e5562e0609
SHA1: 1dfebe27b79f10911358949e56f89c64b43265eb
SHA256: d5b290a60de56f6a7e0af44f5265c6668bb4689204556b9022a5233a808349fc
Description: daemon for the Soprano RDF framework
Soprano is a pluggable RDF storage, parsing, and serialization framework based
on Qt 4. Soprano is targeted at desktop applications that need to store RDF
data. Its API has been optimized for simplicity and ease of use, while its
modular structure allows it to use various different RDF storage
implementations as its backend.
.
This package contains the Soprano daemon, D-Bus service, parser
plugins, and a storage plugin for the Redland RDF Application Framework.
Homepage: http://soprano.sourceforge.net
cupt>--simulate install libsoprano4
The following 1 packages will be INSTALLED:
soprano-daemon
The following 1 packages will be UPGRADED:
libsoprano4
Need to get 700KiB/700KiB of archives. After unpacking 196KiB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q] q
cupt>exit
What this mode may be useful for:
• fast queries
When entering shell mode, the configuration is read and cache is built. Until some management
subcommand is executed, query subcommands don't have to re-read the configuration and cache on
each invocation, and most of them execute instantly in shell mode.
• common configuration changes
As the shell subcommand, as all others, recognizes cupt(1)/Common options, you can use that to
set some configuration options for all the shell session.
Example:
cupt shell --simulate -o apt::install-recommends=no
Installing new recommends will be switched off for all the session inside the shell, and no
real actions will be performed for subcommands that change the system. Note that you can
override them (by supplying -o cupt::worker::simulate=no and -o apt::install-recommends=yes,
respectively, for this example).
Limiting used repositories
As of Cupt version 2.3, you can limit the used package repositories for each package manager invocation
without editing the sources.list(5). The limiting can be done by repository archive names or codenames.
The common syntax is:
limiting_option=value,value,...,value
Use the option --include-archives or --include-codenames to use only specified repositories. In other
words, no matter how many repositories are present in the sources.list(5), only packages from specified
repositories will be considered.
Examples:
• cupt rdepends --include-archives=testing,unstable libffi5
List reverse-dependencies of libffi5 package in testing and unstable.
• cupt safe-upgrade --include-archives=stable,stable-updates
Upgrade the system, considering only packages from archives stable and stable-updates.
• cupt install xserver-xorg --include-codenames=wheezy
Install the package xserver-xorg, if its version in the wheezy is different than installed one
or there is no such package installed. If any packages need to be changed in order to process
this query (e.g., installing new dependencies or removing conflicting packages), only versions
from wheezy will be considered.
• cupt search --names-only '.*?-perl' --include-archives=experimental
Search for Perl module packages in experimental.
Use the option --exclude-archives or --exclude-codenames to not use specified repositories. If a package
version has multiple repositories and at least one of them is not excluded, the version will be visible.
Examples:
• search -n cupt --exclude-archives=stable
Search for Cupt-related packages, but ignore packages from stable.
• cupt full-upgrade --exclude-codenames=sid,experimental
Upgrade not using packages which come only from sid or experimental.
Limiting repositories can also be done by modifying the cupt::cache::limit-releases::* family of
configuration variables directly.
Note: unlike the pinning settings which only set version priorities, limiting repositories is an
"absolute" tool. For example, if the version has a very negative pin, it will be still considered for
installation if there is no better choices, but if all repositories which contain a version are not used,
Cupt will forgot about that version from a very start and forever, without exceptions.
Logging
As of Cupt version 2.2, most actions that effectively change the state of the system or Cupt itself
(namely, working with packages, updating repository metadata and working with system snapshots) are
logged by default.
The place (the file path) where to place the logs is determined by the option cupt::directory::log. By
default, logs are written to /var/log/cupt.log.
There are 4 levels of logging:
0 absolutely no logging at all
1 very minimal logging
2 the significant information is logged
3 very detailed logging
Logging levels are set for each subsystem independently. By default, the logging level for package
changes is set to 2, other logging levels are set to 1. To change the logging level for some subsystem,
use the option cupt::worker::log::levels::subsystem. See cupt.conf(5) for details.
Finally, if you want to disable the logging entirely, set the option cupt::worker::log to no.
ADVANCED USAGE
Functional selectors
Functional selectors is a extended syntax for selecting binary or source versions by their properties or
relations. It's available starting with Cupt 2.6.
It can be used whereever binary package version expression and source package version expression can be
used. It addition, it can be used as a parameter to search --fse.
The full syntax and function reference can be found in cupt_functionalselectors(7).
Examples of functional selector expressions (FSE):
• essential()
All essential versions (those which have Essential: yes).
In the command line it will be
cupt show 'essential()'
or
cupt search --fse 'essential()'
• e()
The same. e is a shortcut for essential.
• package:name(.*req.*)
All versions which package name contains the substring req.
• Pn(.*req.*)
Same. Pn is a shortcut for package:name.
• and(Pn(b.*), e())
All versions which are essential and which package name starts with a letter b.
• and(Pn(b.*), e)
Same. In subexpressions () can be omitted for functions with no parameters.
• Pn(b.*) & e()
Same. x & y & z is a special shortcut syntax for and(x, y, z).
• or(e, provides(vim))
Versions which are essential or provide vim virtual package.
• e() | provides(vim)
Same. x | y | z is a special shortcut syntax for or(x, y, z).
• xor(Pn(vim.*), provides(vim))
Versions, which either have a package name which starts with vim or provide vim virtual
package, but not both.
• not(Pn(vim-nox)) & provides(vim)
Versions which provide vim virtual package, excluding the package vim-nox.
• installed() & priority(extra)
Installed versions of priority extra.
• maintainer(.*lists.alioth.debian.org.*) & priority(required)
Versions of priority required and which maintainer email address is a mailing list hosted on
the Alioth service.
• field(Python-Version, .*2\.3.*)
Versions which have a non-standard field Python-Version with a substring 2.3 somewhere in the
value.
• Pn(.*python.*) & section(utils)
Versions from utils section having python somewhere in the package name.
• package:installed() & release:component(non-free)
All versions of installed packages which come from non-free release component.
• uploaders(.*gmail\.com>)
All source versions where at least one uploader has a Gmail mail address.
• binary-to-source(provides(vim))
All corresponding source versions of those binary versions which provide vim.
• recommends(installed() & e)
All packages which are recommended by installed essential packages.
• and( Ys(Pn(xfce4.*))|Ye(Pn(xfce4.*)), not(Pn(xfce4.*)) )
All packages which are Suggests (Ys) or Enhances (Ye) of any package which name starts with
xfce4, excluding xfce4... packages themselves.
• with(_x, Pn(xfce4.*), and( Ys(_x)|Ye(_x), not(_x)) )
Same.
• with(_x, Pn(grep), reverse-depends(_x) | reverse-recommends(_x))
All versions which depend on or recommend grep.
• fmap(Pn(grep), reverse-depends,reverse-recommends)
Same.
• build-depends(Pn(grep))
Build-dependencies of the all available versions of the source package grep.
• recursive(_r, Pn(cupt)&i, and( Yd(_r)|Yr(_r), not(Pn(.*downloadmethod.*))) )
All direct and indirect depended on and recommended packages (excluding those which have
downloadmethod in the package name from the recursive chain) of the installed version of cupt
package.
For complex FSEs like this it, the multiline no-shortcut equivalent might be preferred:
#!/bin/sh
cupt search --fse '
recursive(_r,
package:name(cupt) & installed(),
and(
depends(_r) | recommends(_r),
not( package:name(.*downloadmethod.*) )
)
)'
System snapshots
System snapshots, created by Cupt, consist of binary archives of installed packages. The idea is you
create snapshots at some time, and when after some changes you system is messed up, you can go back to
the working set of packages.
Caveats:
• The most usual use case for it is downgrade the packages after a bad upgrade, but package
downgrades are usually not supported, so it have not a guarantee to work.
• As of now, snapshots does not store an information about automatically installed packages.
• If the system doesn't boot or messed up to the level that Cupt or dpkg are unable to run
properly, you cannot revert the system.
It's recommended not to use this feature if you have better alternatives available (for example, LVM
snapshots or filesystem-level snapshots).
To create a snapshot, use
cupt snapshot save snapshot_name
Example:
cupt snapshot save 20110405
To revert the system to a saved snapshot, use
cupt snapshot load snapshot_name
Example:
cupt snapshot load 20110405
You can also list the available snapshots (cupt snapshot list), rename (cupt snapshot rename), remove
(cupt snapshot remove).
Satisfying particular dependency relation expressions
There is an ability to change the system not by specifying versions of packages to install or remove, but
by specifying dependencies just as some binary package have them. The subcommand to perform this is
satisfy:
cupt satisfy dependency_expression_1 ... dependency_expression_N
Examples:
cupt satisfy "xserver-xorg (>> 1.6)" "xserver-common (<< 1.6.1~)"
cupt satisfy "nautilus (>= 2.16.0), libnautilus-extension1 (>= 2.16.0), wget (>= 1.10.0)"
cupt satisfy "youtube-dl | clive"
If you want some dependency expression to be unsatisfied instead, add minus (-) to the end of an
argument:
cupt satisfy mail-reader-
Be careful:
cupt satisfy vim emacs-: install vim or anything which provides it, remove emacs and anything which
provides it
cupt satisfy "vim, emacs-": remove emacs, vim and anything which provides them
Request type options
By default, when you type cupt install abcde, the preferred version of abcde package will be installed.
By default, on cupt install abcde/unstable the best of abcde versions found in unstable distribution will
be installed. Also, by default, cupt remove wget/installed or cupt remove wget/wheezy will remove all
versions of wget package (so none of them may be installed). This is traditional selection behavior.
Starting with Cupt 2.6, it's possible to choose (per request) new flexible selection behavior, though
traditional selection behavior is still the default. Flexible behavior is enabled using
--select=flexible (or, shorter, --sf) command line option. Traditional behavior can be (re)enabled using
--select=traditional (or, shorter, --st) command line option.
Flexible selection behavior is often more intuitive. cupt --sf install abcde will install any version of
abcde package (with, as usual, resolver choosing versions with higher pins first). cupt --sf install
abcde/unstable will install any version of abcde found in unstable distribution. cupt --sf remove wget
will still remove the package unconditionally just like traditional behavior, but, say, cupt --sf remove
wget/installed wget/wheezy may either remove wget package or install some its version not from wheezy
distribution.
The command line options above are positional and can be mixed. cupt --select=flexible iii jhc
ncdu/experimental --select=traditional --remove automake*/installed will install (if were installed) any
version of jhc and any version of ncdu found in experimental distribution, but unconditionally remove
installed packages which names start with automake.
Request importance options
By default, when you ask Cupt to perform some package management actions, they will be performed
unconditionally. As in, the command will fail if any of requested actions cannot be performed. Sometimes
more flexibility might be wanted, especially with wildcards and FSE.
Starting with Cupt 2.6, it's possibly to specify also non-mandatory, or optional, requests. For optional
requests you also specify their importance, choosing from a three predefined profiles or supplying
precise integer value. The request importance is controlled by --importance= command line option.
To specify actions which should be tried hard but you accept that some of them could not be satisfied at
reasonable price (e.g. some of them conflicts with each other or require extremely "bad" changes to the
system), use --importance=try (or its shortcut --try). For example:
$ cupt -s install --try 'provides(vim)' --no-summary
The following packages will be installed:
[...] vim-athena vim-nox
The following packages will be upgraded:
[...] vim vim-common vim-gtk vim-gui-common vim-runtime
[...]
Leave the following dependencies unresolved:
user request: install provides(vim) | for package 'vim-gnome'
To specify actions with low importance (as in: "do some of them if possible"), use --importance=wish (or
its shortcut --wish). For example:
$ cupt -s --wish remove *gnome*
[...]
The following packages will be removed:
gnome-keyring gstreamer0.10-plugins-good libpam-gnome-keyring
libsoup-gnome2.4-1
The following packages are no longer needed and thus will be auto-removed:
gcr gstreamer0.10-gconf gstreamer0.10-x iptables libcap-ng0 libcap2-bin
libdrm-nouveau1a libdv4 libgck-1-0 libgcr-3-1 libgcr-3-common libiec61883-0
libnfnetlink0 libpam-cap libxtables10
Leave the following dependencies unresolved:
gksu 2.0.2-6^installed recommends 'gnome-keyring'
user request: remove *gnome* | for package 'libgnome-keyring-common'
user request: remove *gnome* | for package 'libgnome-keyring0'
libwebkitgtk-3.0-0 2.0.4-5 recommends 'gstreamer1.0-plugins-good'
libwebkitgtk-1.0-0 2.0.4-5 recommends 'gstreamer1.0-plugins-good'
To specify precise numeric importance(s), use --importance=number. For example:
$ cupt -s install --importance=10000 xmail --importance=15000 nullmailer --no-auto-remove
The following packages will be installed:
nullmailer
The following packages will be removed:
msmtp-mta
Leave the following dependencies unresolved:
user request: install xmail | for package 'xmail'
$ cupt -s install --importance=20000 xmail --importance=15000 nullmailer --no-auto-remove
The following packages will be installed:
xmail
The following packages will be removed:
msmtp-mta
Leave the following dependencies unresolved:
user request: install nullmailer | for package 'nullmailer'
You can also, as usually, mix those options and use --importance=must (or its shortcut --must) to restore
default behavior, for example:
cupt install --try pinentry-* --wish *debootstrap --must --select=flexible icedove *xulrunner*
The penalty values of --importance=try and --importance=wish are controlled by configuration options
cupt::resolver::score::unsatisfied-try and cupt::resolver::score::unsatisfied-wish, respectively.
Changes in systems with a low disk space
If you happen to have a system, where the disk space is very limited, doing a big upgrades or
installations can be a problem. For example, you have 1 GiB of disk space total, installed packages
occupy 600 MiB of them, now you want to do a massive upgrade, and it's needed to download 500 MiB of
archives to do that, and after the upgrade packages will occupy 700 MiB. Here, the simple approach of
download everything needed and then upgrade everything needed wouldn't work since there is no 1100 MiB of
the disk space available. The answer is to do the upgrade by smaller parts. Now, although it can be done
by selecting groups of packages to upgrade or install by hand, Cupt can try to do it automatically.
To enable the changeset-based mode you will be need specify how many space is available for downloaded
files. It's impossible to compute the amount reliably since changed packages may use some additional
space (for example, kernel upgrades) or you may write or remove something to the filesystem before/while
the upgrading is progressing. A rough guess of 'amount of free space minus 100 MiB' is a good start.
After you computed the disk space you can give for package archives, specify it as a value, in bytes, for
cupt::worker::archives-space-limit option. Example:
cupt full-upgrade -o cupt::worker::archives-space-limit=200000000
Once this option is set, an action scheduler will try to divide all the changes into smaller consecutive
changesets so the following conditions are met:
• Download amounts for package changes in any changeset won't exceed the declared limit.
• After each changeset is done, system is fully working in the sense of packages, i.e. all
dependencies are met and there are no packages in interim states.
If such changesets are found, Cupt will proceed with actions, otherwise an error with a minimal suitable
number will be printed.
For each changeset, package archives will be downloaded before doing actions and removed before the next
changeset begins.
Synchronization by source versions
Sometimes it is a good idea to keep installed binary packages which were built out of same source package
(let's call them related) to have the same source version.
Related packages are synchronized if they have the same source version, i.e. binary version may not be
the same. For example, the following pairs are usually synchronized:
• qprint 1.0-1 and qprint-doc 1.0-1
• qprint 1.0-1+b2 and qprint-doc 1.0-1
But the following are usually not:
• qprint 1.0-1 and qprint-doc 1.0-2
Cupt's resolver tries to synchronize the versions of related binary packages if the option
cupt::resolver::synchronize-by-source-versions is set to non-default value.
Note: this option works properly only if you have source packages available for all the packages touched
by a resolver.
Note: this option doesn't touch installed packages.
Example:
cupt safe-upgrade -o cupt::resolver::synchronize-by-source-versions=hard
The hard value means that all changed packages must be synchronized, e.g. consider the synchronization
an additional hard dependency. The soft value means that all unsynchronized changed packages will have a
penalty of cupt::resolver::score::failed-synchronization, e.g. consider the synchronization as additional
soft dependency.
Example:
Suppose we have libfoo1 and foo binary packages which came from the same source package. We have libfoo1
1.2-1 and foo 1.2-1 installed.
Situation 1: libfoo1 has new 1.3-1 version and foo has new 1.3-1 version.
Situation 2: libfoo1 has new 1.3-1 version and foo has new 1.3-2 version.
We do:
cupt install foo
What would be done by resolver if we have:
• no synchronization
Situation 1: install new foo, leave libfoo1 as of installed version
Situation 2: install new foo, leave libfoo1 as of installed version
• soft synchronization
Situation 1: install new foo and libfoo1
Situation 2: install new foo, leave libfoo1 as of installed version
• hard synchronization
Situation 1: install new foo and libfoo1
Situation 2: give up with an error tree, (assuming foo depends on libfoo1, if it does not, then
install new foo, remove libfoo1)
Resolver tuning
score
Cupt's native dependency problem resolver plans system changes, if needed, to make installed packages set
correct after making the changes user demand.
In the most cases, there are several solutions to a problem. To choose amongst them, resolver assign
scores to all of them.
Score is an integer (positive or negative) and is a sum of version weight difference and an action
modifier. Version weight, or "normalized version priority", is a version pin value minus a default pin
for a preferred versions. Action modifiers are action type-specific addendums and are controlled by the
option group cupt::resolver::score::X (see the full list of them in cupt.conf(5)).
For native resolver, the negative scores indicate "negative" changes, and positive scores indicate
"positive" changes. When several alternative solutions for a problem are available, they are considered
in the score descending order. The ultimate goal of score system to assign positive scores to everything
user wants and negative scores to everything user doesn't want. But since "positive" and "negative" is
something that varies from user to user and from action to action, there is no (and cannot be) a silver
bullet.
So, how can you adjust solution scores? From the definition of the score (above) you may adjust version
pinning and/or set resolver score variables to different values.
Examples:
$ echo 'q' | cupt -s -t experimental full-upgrade --summary-only | grep "^ "
W: some solutions were dropped, you may want to increase the value of the 'cupt::resolver::max-solution-count' option
0 manually installed and 48 automatically installed packages will be installed
129 manually installed and 474 automatically installed packages will be upgraded
0 manually installed and 32 automatically installed packages will be removed
2 manually installed and 17 automatically installed packages will have a not preferred version
$ echo 'q' | cupt -s -t experimental full-upgrade --summary-only -o cupt::resolver::score::unsatisfied-recommends=250 | grep "^ "
W: some solutions were dropped, you may want to increase the value of the 'cupt::resolver::max-solution-count' option
0 manually installed and 43 automatically installed packages will be installed
129 manually installed and 473 automatically installed packages will be upgraded
0 manually installed and 34 automatically installed packages will be removed
2 manually installed and 14 automatically installed packages will have a not preferred version
4 dependency problems will stay unresolved
$ echo 'q' | cupt -s -t experimental full-upgrade --summary-only -o cupt::resolver::score::new=-1000 | grep "^ "
W: some solutions were dropped, you may want to increase the value of the 'cupt::resolver::max-solution-count' option
0 manually installed and 30 automatically installed packages will be installed
124 manually installed and 429 automatically installed packages will be upgraded
3 manually installed and 70 automatically installed packages will be removed
9 manually installed and 14 automatically installed packages will have a not preferred version
7 dependency problems will stay unresolved
$ echo 'q' | cupt -s -t experimental full-upgrade --summary-only -o cupt::resolver::score::new=-1000 -o cupt::resolver::score::downgrade=0 | grep "^ "
W: some solutions were dropped, you may want to increase the value of the 'cupt::resolver::max-solution-count' option
0 manually installed and 18 automatically installed packages will be installed
119 manually installed and 464 automatically installed packages will be upgraded
1 manually installed and 20 automatically installed packages will be removed
14 manually installed and 37 automatically installed packages will have a not preferred version
4 dependency problems will stay unresolved
maximum solution count
When an amount of available solutions is big, you may see the following message while resolver is
operating:
W: some solutions were dropped, you may want to increase the value of the
'cupt::resolver::max-solution-count' option
Cupt's native resolver may have only limited amount of different solutions in the memory, and this amount
is determined by the value of the cupt::resolver::max-solution-count option. The default value is enough
for requests of small and medium complexity, but may be not enough for request of high complexity. So,
for systems where there is enough free RAM, consider increasing the value to values like 4000 or even
16000.
Getting debug information
There are several types of debug information available, the debug output is turned on by setting some
debug::type option to yes. All debug output lines is prepended with D: and are sent to standard error.
resolver
The native resolver will output its resolution tree and scores.
The debug option is debug::resolver.
worker
A debug information regarding scheduling dpkg actions will be printed.
The debug option is debug::worker.
downloader
A debug information regarding downloader's states will be printed.
The debug option is debug::downloader.
gpg signatures
The gpg signature checker will output its debug information.
The debug option is debug::gpgv.
logger
All log messages (of all levels, regardless of logging settings) will be printed as debug
messages.
The debug option is debug::logger.
An example: you want to see a very detailed resolver information regarding your query:
cupt install exim4 -o debug::resolver=yes 2>resolver.debug.log
A debug information will be put to a file resolver.debug.log.