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goat

Member

Registered: 2024-03-19

Posts: 6  

How to Disable the New Apt Pager

With Debian 13 Trixie having arrived, Apt has been updated with an added pager for certain commands, including the search function 'apt search'.
The merge request is here.

I've found this particular addition/update to apt to be a bit annoying; as it is on by default, and 'apt search such-and-such | less' works just as well when needed, at my optional preference.

So to disable it, one can do the following.

As root, navigate to /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/  (or something like: sudo nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99pager)
use nano or whatever: nano 99pager    (or whatever file name you find suitable)
include the following single line in the new configuration file

Binary::apt::Pager "false";

exit nano or whatever, saving the file, and you should be good to go.  Cheers.

abower

Member

Registered: 2024-04-19

Posts: 7  

Re: How to Disable the New Apt Pager

Isn't the idea that 'apt' can change on a whim for the nice front end experience and 'apt-get', 'apt-cache' etc. are the proper stable commands (which I use)?

ralph.ronnquist

Administrator

From: Battery Point, Tasmania, AUS

Registered: 2016-11-30

Posts: 1,462  

Re: How to Disable the New Apt Pager

And some, like me, might prefer

Binary::apt::APT::Color "false";

igorzwx

Member

Registered: 2024-05-06

Posts: 228  

Re: How to Disable the New Apt Pager

It may depend on color theme and display resolution.
To avoid fatigue, one may try a sort of "retina display"
_https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_display
e.g. 4K UHD and 8K UHD (ultra high definition).
However, if you are already semi-deaf and semi-blind, you may not notice the difference in resolution (sample rate) in both video and audio.

NOTE: UHD resolution is not supported by very old computers.

Last edited by igorzwx (2025-08-10 14:35:50)

Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 491  

Re: How to Disable the New Apt Pager

UHD resolution

Crikey, I don't even like HD on small monitors, & anything bigger than 21" needs to be seen from another room.....

Love my WXGA 15" monitors....

igorzwx

Member

Registered: 2024-05-06

Posts: 228  

Re: How to Disable the New Apt Pager

Try a MacBook with retina display and "true color"
_https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth#True_color_(24-bit)

Use True Tone on Mac

True Tone technology makes the images on your Retina display and Touch Bar appear more natural.

The True Tone technology in Mac computers, Studio Display, and Apple Pro Display XDR uses advanced multichannel sensors to adjust the color and intensity of your display and Touch Bar to match the ambient light so that images appear more natural.
_https://support.apple.com/en-us/102147

Because of pulseaudio, pipewire, systemd, Desktop design, audio and video quality, Linux Desktop users became a marginal minority. It seems to be a sort of "natural selection". The semi-deaf and semi-blind might be indifferent to audio quality and all sorts of "visual aesthetics".

Last edited by igorzwx (2025-08-10 21:32:42)

EDX-0

Member

Registered: 2020-12-12

Posts: 135  

Re: How to Disable the New Apt Pager

Isn't the idea that 'apt' can change on a whim for the nice front end experience and 'apt-get', 'apt-cache' etc. are the proper stable commands (which I use)?

yes, apt-get is intended to be the stable APT interface intended to be used in scripts while apt is understood to be the interactive friendly and ever changing interface.

igorzwx

Member

Registered: 2024-05-06

Posts: 228  

Re: How to Disable the New Apt Pager

$ apt search apt | grep apt-

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

apt-build/stable 0.12.49 amd64
apt-cacher/stable 1.7.29 all
...

$ apt-cache search apt | grep apt-
apt-build - frontend to apt to build, optimize and install packages
apt-cacher - Caching proxy server for Debian/Ubuntu/Devuan software repositories
...