To modify Synaptic so that it uses aptitude instead of apt-get.

Aptitude (like apt-get and synaptic) uses libapt. What is the particular bit that you would like to be changed in synaptic? Aptitude like sticky selections? Automatic dependency tracking? The problem resolver? -- mvo

The "To remove the dependences that are not being used by any program." is implemented in the feisty version of synpatic mostly. You currently have to remove them by going to "Installed (auto-removable)" in the status view, but synaptic keeps track of it. -- mvo

"Those who know" tell us aptitude is the recommended tool because it gets more things right automatically and keeps track of more information than apt-get does, and that you can't expect aptitude to work right after using apt-get unless you do something to explicitly synchronize it. That seems to argue for using aptitude to avoid messing up those people who want to use the recommended method.

Of course, there are probably millions of ubuntu HOWTO pages out there that recommend the use of apt-get. I'm not sure what you do about that other than to modify apt-get to set a flag telling aptitude it needs to get re-synchronized. What a mess. -DA

Googled "synaptic aptitude" and found this. What I want is for Synaptic to use the same database as aptitude to record the "auto-uninstallable" information. I am addicted to aptitude auto-installation tracking. -- ddaa