Configuration file reference

Configuration file format
Locations of configuration files
Available configuration options

Configuration file format

In its basic form, aptitude's configuration file is a list of options and their values. Each line of the file should have the form “Option Value;”: for instance, the following line in the configuration file sets the option Aptitude::Theme to “Dselect”.

Aptitude::Theme "Dselect";

An option can “contain” other options if they are written in curly braces between the option and the semicolon following it, like this:

Aptitude::UI {
  Package-Status-Format "";
  Package-Display-Format "";
};

An option that contains other options is sometimes called a group. In fact, the double colons that appear in option names are actually a shorthand way of indicating containment: the option Aptitude::UI::Default-Grouping is contained in the group Aptitude::UI, which itself is contained in the group Aptitude. Thus, if you wanted to, you could set this option to "" as follows:

Aptitude {
  UI {
    Default-Grouping "";
  };
};

For more information on the format of the configuration file, see the manual page apt.conf(5).

Locations of configuration files

aptitude's configuration is read from the following sources, in order:

  1. The user's configuration file, ~/.aptitude/config. This file is overwritten when the user modifies settings in the Options menu.

  2. The system configuration file, /etc/apt/apt.conf.

  3. Default values stored in /usr/share/aptitude/aptitude-defaults.

  4. Default values built into the program.

When an option is being checked, these sources are searched in order, and the first one that provides a value for the option is used. For instance, setting an option in /etc/apt/apt.conf will override aptitude's defaults for that option, but will not override user settings in ~/.aptitude/config.

Available configuration options

The following configuration options are used by aptitude. Note that these are not the only available configuration options; options used by the underlying apt system are not listed here. See the manual pages apt(8) and apt.conf(5) for information on apt options.

Option: Dir::Aptitude::state

Default: /var/lib/aptitude

Description: The directory in which aptitude's persistent state information is stored.

Option: Aptitude::Allow-Null-Upgrade

Default: false

Description: Normally, if you try to start an install run when no actions will be performed, aptitude will print a warning and return to the package list. If this option is true, aptitude will continue to the preview screen whenever there are upgradable packages, rather than displaying a reminder about the Actions->Mark Upgradable (U) command.

Option: Aptitude::Autoclean-After-Update

Default: false

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will clean up obsolete files (see Actions->Clean obsolete files) every time you update the package list.

Option: Aptitude::Auto-Install

Default: true

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will automatically attempt to fulfill the dependencies of a package when you select it for installation.

Option: Aptitude::Auto-Fix-Broken

Default: true

Description: If this option is false, aptitude will ask for permission before attempting to fix any broken packages.

Option: Aptitude::Auto-Upgrade

Default: false

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will automatically flag all upgradable packages for upgrade when the program starts, as if you had issued the command Actions->Mark Upgradable (U).

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Always-Prompt

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, if this is set, aptitude will always prompt before starting to install or remove packages, even if the prompt would normally be skipped. This is equivalent to the -P command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Assume-Yes

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, if this option is true, aptitude will act as if the user had answered “yes” to every prompt, causing most prompts to be skipped. This is equivalent to the -y command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Ignore-Trust-Violations

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, causes the program to ignore the installation of untrusted packages.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Resolver-Debug

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, if this option is true, aptitude will print extremely verbose information while attempting to resolve broken dependencies. As the name suggests, this option is primarily meant to aid in debugging the problem resolver.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Resolver-Dump

Default:

Description: In command-line mode, if it is necessary to resolve broken dependencies and this option is set to the name of a writable file, the resolver state will be dumped to this file before any calculations are undertaken.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Request-Strictness

Default: 10000

Description: When run in command-line mode, if dependency problems are encountered, aptitude will add this value to the problem resolver score of each action that you explicitly request.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Download-Only

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, if this option is true, aptitude will download package files but not install them. This is equivalent to the -d command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Fix-Broken

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, if this option is true, aptitude will be more aggressive when attempting to fix the dependencies of broken packages. This is equivalent to the -f command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Package-Display-Format

Default: %c%a%M %p# - %d#

Description: This is a format string, as described in the section called “Customizing how packages are displayed”, which is used to display the results of a command-line search. This is equivalent to the -F command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Package-Display-Width

Default:

Description: This option gives the width in characters for which command-line search results should be formatted. If it is empty (the default; ie, ""), search results will be formatted for the current terminal size, or for an 80-column display if the terminal size cannot be determined.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Deps

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, if this option is true, aptitude will display a brief summary of the dependencies (if any) relating to a package's state. This is equivalent to the -D command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Versions

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, if this option is true, aptitude will display the version of a package that is being installed or removed. This is equivalent to the -V command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Show-Size-Changes

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, if this option is true, aptitude will display the expected change in the amount of space used by each package. This is equivalent to the -Z command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Simulate

Default: false

Description: This option is deprecated; use Aptitude::Simulate instead. In command-line mode, causes aptitude to just display the actions that would be performed (rather than actually performing them); in the visual interface, causes the program to start in read-only mode regardless of whether you are root or not. This is equivalent to the -s command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Visual-Preview

Default: false

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will enter its visual mode to display the preview of an installation run and to download packages.

Option: Aptitude::CmdLine::Verbose

Default: 0

Description: This controls how verbose the command-line mode of aptitude is. Every occurance of the -v command-line option adds 1 to this value.

Option: Aptitude::Delete-Unused

Default: true

Description: If this option is true, automatically installed packages which are no longer required will be automatically removed. For more information, see the section called “Managing automatically installed packages”.

Option: Aptitude::Delete-Unused-Pattern

Default:

Description: Deprecated alias for Aptitude::Keep-Unused-Pattern. If Aptitude::Keep-Unused-Pattern is unset or set to an empty string, the value of this configuration option will override it. Otherwise, Aptitude::Delete-Unused-Pattern is ignored.

Option: Aptitude::Display-Planned-Action

Default: true

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will display a preview screen before actually carrying out the actions you have requested.

Option: Aptitude::Forget-New-On-Update

Default: false

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will clear the list of new packages whenever the package list is updated, as if you had issued the command Actions->Forget new packages (f).

Option: Aptitude::Forget-New-On-Install

Default: false

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will clear the list of new packages whenever you install, upgrade, or remove packages, as if you had issued the command Actions->Forget new packages (f).

Option: Aptitude::Ignore-Old-Tmp

Default: false

Description: Old versions of aptitude created a directory ~/.aptitude/.tmp which is no longer necessary. If the directory exists and Aptitude::Ignore-Old-Tmp is true, aptitude will ask you whether to remove this directory. This option is automatically set to true after you reply. On the other hand, if the directory does not exist, this option is set to false so that you will be notified if it reappears.

Option: Aptitude::Keep-Recommends

Default: false

Description: If this option is true, then packages will be kept on the system as long as any installed package recommends them, even if Aptitude::Recommends-Important is false.

Option: Aptitude::Keep-Suggests

Default: false

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will keep automatically installed packages on the system as long as any installed package suggests them. For more information, see the section called “Managing automatically installed packages”.

Option: Aptitude::Keep-Unused-Pattern

Default:

Description: If Aptitude::Delete-Unused is true, only unused packages which do not match this pattern (see the section called “Search Patterns”) will be removed. If this option is set to an empty string (the default), all unused packages will be removed.

Option: Aptitude::LockFile

Default: /var/lock/aptitude

Description: A file that will be fcntl-locked to ensure that at most one aptitude process can modify the cache at once. In normal circumstances, you should never need to modify this; it may be useful for debugging. Note: if aptitude complains that it cannot acquire a lock, this is not because the lock file needs to be deleted. fcntl locks are managed by the kernel and will be destroyed when the program terminates; failure to acquire the lock means that another running program is using it!

Option: Aptitude::Log

Default: /var/log/aptitude

Description: If this is set to a nonempty string, aptitude will log the package installations, removals, and upgrades that it performs. If the value of Aptitude::Log begins with a pipe character (ie, “|”), the remainder of its value is used as the name of a command into which the log will be piped: for instance, |mail -s 'Aptitude install run' root will cause the log to be emailed to root. To log to multiple files or commands, you may set this option to a list of log targets.

Option: Aptitude::Parse-Description-Bullets

Default: false

Description: If this option is enabled, aptitude will attempt to automatically detect bulleted lists in package descriptions. This will generally improve how descriptions are displayed, but it is not entirely backwards-compatible; some descriptions might be formatted less attractively when this option is true than when it is false.

Option: Aptitude::Pkg-Display-Limit

Default:

Description: The default filter applied to the package list; see the section called “Search Patterns” for details about its format.

Option: Aptitude::Recommends-Important

Default: true

Description: If this option is true and Aptitude::Auto-Install is true, installing a new package will also install any packages that it recommends. Furthermore, if this option is true, then packages will be kept on the system if an installed package recommends them.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::BreakHoldScore

Default: -300

Description: How much to reward or penalize solutions that change the state of a held package.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::BrokenScore

Default: -100

Description: How much to reward or penalize prospective solutions based on the number of dependencies they break. For each dependency broken by a possible solution, this many points are added to its score; typically this should be a negative value.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Discard-Null-Solution

Default: true

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will never suggest cancelling all of your proposed actions in order to resolve a dependency problem.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::EssentialRemoveScore

Default: -100000

Description: How much to reward or penalize solutions that remove an Essential package.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::ExtraScore

Default: -1

Description: Any version of a package whose Priority is “extra” will have this many points added to its score.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::ImportantScore

Default: 5

Description: Any version of a package whose Priority is “important” will have this many points added to its score.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Infinity

Default: 1000000

Description: A “maximum” score for potential solutions. If a set of actions has a score worse than -Infinity, it will be discarded immediately.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::InstallScore

Default: -20

Description: How much weight the problem resolver should give to installing a package, if the package is not already going to be installed.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::KeepScore

Default: 0

Description: How much weight the problem resolver should give to keeping a package in its current state, if that package is not already going to be kept in its current state.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Max-Successors

Default: 0

Description: When new possible solutions are being generated, this value controls how long the generation procedure lasts. Successors are generated in discrete bundles, and as soon as at least one and at most Max-Successors nodes have been generated, successor generation terminates. Turning this value up might cause the first few generated solutions to have higher scores; on the other hand, it might cause each resolver “step” to take a long time.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::NonDefaultScore

Default: -40

Description: How much weight the problem resolver should give to installing a non-default version of the package (one that is not the current version and not the “candidate version”).

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::OptionalScore

Default: 1

Description: Any version of a package whose Priority is “optional” will have this many points added to its score.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::PreserveAutoScore

Default: 0

Description: How much weight the problem resolver should give to preserving automatic installations or removals.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::PreserveManualScore

Default: 60

Description: How much weight the problem resolver should give to preserving explicit user selections.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::ResolutionScore

Default: 50

Description: In addition to all other scoring factors, proposed solutions that actually resolve all unsatisfied dependencies are awarded this many extra points.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::RemoveScore

Default: -300

Description: How much weight the problem resolver should give to removing a package (if it is not already marked for removal).

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::RequiredScore

Default: 4

Description: Any version of a package whose Priority is “required” will have this many points added to its score.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::StandardScore

Default: 3

Description: Any version of a package whose Priority is “standard” will have this many points added to its score.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::StepLimit

Default: 5000

Description: The maximum number of “steps” which should be performed by the problem resolver on each attempt to find a solution to a dependency problem. Decreasing this number will make the program “give up” sooner; increasing it will permit the search for a solution to consume much more time and memory before it is aborted. The default value is large enough to accomodate commonly encountered situations, while preventing the program from “blowing up” if an overly complicated problem is encountered. (note: this applies only to command-line searches; in the visual interface, the resolver will continue working until it reaches a solution)

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::StepScore

Default: 10

Description: How much to reward or penalize prospective solutions based on their length. For each action performed by a solution, this many points are added to its score. Typically this should be a negative value.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::UnfixedSoftScore

Default: -200

Description: How much to reward or penalize leaving a Recommends relationship unresolved. This should typically be less than RemoveScore, or aptitude will tend to remove packages rather than leaving their Recommendations unfixed. See the section called “Solving Dependency Problems” for details.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::UpgradeScore

Default: 0

Description: How much weight the problem resolver should give to upgrading (or downgrading) a package to its candidate version, if the package was not already going to be upgraded.

Option: Aptitude::ProblemResolver::WaitSteps

Default: 50

Description: The number of resolver steps to perform in the foreground before moving the resolution to the background thread. aptitude will be unresponsive while this computation takes place; decreasing this value will make the program more responsive, but may cause the progress indicator to appear unnecessarily.

Option: Aptitude::Purge-Unused

Default: false

Description: If this option is true and Aptitude::Delete-Unused is also true, then packages which are unused will be purged from the system, removing their configuration files and perhaps other important data. For more information about which packages are considered to be “unused”, see the section called “Managing automatically installed packages”. THIS OPTION CAN CAUSE DATA LOSS! DO NOT ENABLE IT UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

Option: Aptitude::Simulate

Default: false

Description: In command-line mode, causes aptitude to just display the actions that would be performed (rather than actually performing them); in the visual interface, causes the program to start in read-only mode regardless of whether you are root or not. This is equivalent to the -s command-line option.

Option: Aptitude::Suggests-Important

Default: false

Description: This is an obsolete option; use Aptitude::Keep-Suggests instead. Setting this option to true has the same effect as setting Aptitude::Keep-Suggests to true.

Option: Aptitude::Theme

Default:

Description: The theme that aptitude should use; see the section called “Themes” for more information.

Option: Aptitude::Spin-Interval

Default: 500

Description: The number of milliseconds to delay in between updating the “spinner” that appears while the problem resolver is running.

Option: Aptitude::Track-Dselect-State

Default: true

Description: If this option is set to true, aptitude will attempt to detect when a change to a package's state has been made using dselect or dpkg: for instance, if you remove a package using dpkg, aptitude will not try to reinstall it. Note that this may be somewhat buggy.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Advance-On-Action

Default: false

Description: If this option is set to true, changing a package's state (for instance, marking it for installation) will cause aptitude to advance the highlight to the next package in the current group.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Auto-Show-Reasons

Default: true

Description: If this option is set to true, selecting a package which is broken or which appears to be causing other packages to be broken will cause the information area to automatically display some reasons why the breakage might be occuring.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Default-Grouping

Default: filter(missing),status,section(subdir,passthrough),section(topdir)

Description: Sets the default grouping policy used for package lists. See the section called “Customizing the package hierarchy” for additional information on grouping policies.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Default-Preview-Grouping

Default: action

Description: Sets the default grouping policy used for preview screens. See the section called “Customizing the package hierarchy” for additional information on grouping policies.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Default-Sorting

Default: name

Description: The default sorting policy of package views. See the section called “Customizing how packages are sorted” for more information.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Description-Visible-By-Default

Default: true

Description: When a package list is first displayed, the information area (which typically contains the long description of the current package) will be visible if this option is true and hidden if it is false.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Default-Package-View

Default:

Description: This option is a group whose members define the default layout of aptitude's display. See the section called “Customizing the display layout” for more information.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Download-Poll-Interval

Default: 50000

Description: This option gives the interval in milliseconds at which the user interface will update its display and poll for new input while a download is being performed. Smaller values will make the program more responsive, but will consume a larger amount of CPU time.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Exit-On-Last-Close

Default: true

Description: If this option is true, closing all the active views will quit aptitude; otherwise, aptitude will not exit until you issue the command Actions->Quit (Q). See the section called “Working with multiple views” for more information.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Fill-Text

Default: false

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will format descriptions so that each line is exactly the width of the screen.

Option: Aptitude::UI::HelpBar

Default: true

Description: If this option is true, a line of information about important keystrokes will be displayed at the top of the screen.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Incremental-Search

Default: true

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will perform “incremental” searches: as you type the search pattern, it will search for the next package matching what you have typed so far.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Keybindings

Default:

Description: This is a group whose members define the connections between keystrokes and commands in aptitude. For more information, see the section called “Customizing keybindings”.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Menubar-Autohide

Default: false

Description: If this option is set to true, the menu bar will be hidden while it is not in use.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Minibuf-Download-Bar

Default: false

Description: If this option is set to true, aptitude will use a less obtrusive mechanism to display the progress of downloads: a bar at the bottom of the screen will appear which displays the current download status. While the download is active, pressing q will abort it.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Minibuf-Prompts

Default: false

Description: If this option is true, some prompts (such as yes/no and multiple-choice prompts) will be displayed at the bottom of the screen instead of in dialog boxes.

Option: Aptitude::UI::New-Package-Commands

Default: true

Description: If this option is set to false, commands such as Package->Install (+) will have the same deprecated behavior that they did in antique versions of aptitude.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Package-Display-Format

Default: %c%a%M %p %Z %v %V

Description: This option controls the format string used to display packages in package lists. For more information on format strings, see the section called “Customizing how packages are displayed”.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Package-Header-Format

Default: %N %n #%B %u %o

Description: This option controls the format string used to display the header line of package lists (ie, the line that appears between the package list and the menu bar). For more information on format strings, see the section called “Customizing how packages are displayed”.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Package-Status-Format

Default: %d

Description: This option controls the format string used to display the status line of package lists (ie, the line that appears between the package list and the information area). For more information on format strings, see the section called “Customizing how packages are displayed”.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Pause-After-Download

Default: OnlyIfError

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will display a message after it finishes downloading packages, asking you if you want to continue with the installation. If it is OnlyIfError, a message will only be displayed if a download failed. Otherwise, if the option is set to false, aptitude will immediately proceed to the next screen after completing a download.

Option: Aptitude::Preview-Limit

Default:

Description: The default filter applied to the preview screen; see the section called “Search Patterns” for details about its format.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Prompt-On-Exit

Default: true

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will display a confirmation prompt before shutting down.

Option: Aptitude::UI::Styles

Default:

Description: This is a configuration group whose contents define what textual styles aptitude uses to display information. For more information, see the section called “Customizing text colors and styles”.

Option: Aptitude::UI::ViewTabs

Default: true

Description: If this option is set to false, aptitude will not display “tabs” describing the currently active views at the top of the screen.

Option: Aptitude::Suppress-Read-Only-Warning

Default: false

Description: If this option is false, aptitude will display a warning the first time that you attempt to modify package states while the program is in read-only mode.

Option: Aptitude::Warn-Not-Root

Default: true

Description: If this option is true, aptitude will detect when you need root privileges to do something, and ask you whether you want to switch to the root account if you aren't root already. See the section called “Becoming root” for more information.

Option: DebTags::Vocabulary

Default: /usr/share/debtags/vocabulary

Description: The location of the debtags vocabulary file; used to load in the package tag metadata.

Option: Quiet

Default: 0

Description: This controls the quietness of the command-line mode. Setting it to a higher value will disable more progress indicators.