Instead of # aliases that use su -c and # aliases that use sudo, they should say # aliases that use aptitude and # aliases that use apt (which sounds a bit more useful). To do that the as alias should be updated to use apt-cache (see here, I didn't have the time to push this upstream), and maybe create another alias to use the current aptitude command (something like aps?). Could you please do this?

Also, not sure whether sudo is better than su -lc, but I surely prefer the former, and other plugins (yum and macports) do too, what about using it for all the aliases?

/me being the original author of the deb plugin.

The real problem is that we have aptitude v. apt-get and su v. sudo, which results in a lot of permutations. I didn't mean to imply that one or the other is better.

The reason I don't use sudo is that it was meant to give very specific superuser permissions to specific users, and I am the only user on most of my machines so I really have no use for it-- I trust myself to simply use root to do all administrative work.

As for aptitude v. apt-get, that one is mostly a judgment call (except for apt-get source, for which aptitude has no alternative last I checked).

I think maybe the best solution is to set two preference variables, and then write a function that incorporates those preferences into the aliases whereever possible. This will also avoid confusing namespace issues (e.g. "as" v. "aps"). I think I could finish this in a day or two.

Another possibility is that I could write a function that uses sudo by default if which sudo exists, and resorts to su if it doesn't. And for the aptitude/apt-get, aptitude aliases could start with at and apt-get with ag (but who wants to type an extra character?)

Another possibility is that I could write a function that uses sudo by default if which sudo exists, and resorts to su if it
doesn't

Agreed.

And for the aptitude/apt-get, aptitude aliases could start with at and apt-get with ag (but who wants to type an extra
character?)

Why not use aptitude if which aptitude exists? There could be a variable to use apt if both exists, but it seems a reasonable default to me.

Are any project admins even reading the pull requests?

"Are any project admins even reading the pull requests?"

Sometimes... just have a big backlog to work through. Merging in 3...2..