change apt to nala

[root9191]

Can i change the package manager to nala also for dietpi commands?

[Joulinar]

We use apt-get and there is no variable to change this. I guess answer would be: No

[MichaIng]

What is the reason you want to have nala support integrated?

For the UI enhancements, it of course does not make any sense, since the G_AG* commands are non-interactive anyway. For the parallel downloads part: There was apt-fast support in the past, but doing own tests, it was actually slower instead of faster, compared to apt-get with the global Debian CDN:

• DietPi-Software | apt-fast: Add to software list and re-add support to G_AGI #1987 (comment)
• DietPi-Globals | G_AG*: Add apt-fast support #2817
• apt-get vs. apt-fast speed comparisons ilikenwf/apt-fast#163

[root9191]

In my opinion nala does a better and faster job than apt.
So also in future no possibility to change the package manager?

[MichaIng]

First of all nala is an apt frontend/wrapper, not a replacement. Since the UI enhancements are not relevant for the non-interactive calls in our scripts, the "faster" aspect is the only arguments. And that is not so much an opinion, bit either it indeed does APT installs/upgrades significantly faster or not. Did you make benchmarks to verify that, compared to plain apt with the global deb.debian.org CDN? As said, at first it sounds logic that parallel downloads are faster, but the apt-fast example showed that this is true only in rare edge cases, while the additional processing in fact slows down the whole installation in the majority cases. A small benefit for a small number of users is IMO not worth the effort to implement and maintain support for additional APT tools.

Of course this does not mean that you cannot install and use nala for your own/manual APT installs, just out scripts do not use it.

And also if someone else does the implementation, we might accept it. Just my own time is limited and there are much more important tasks.