Ubuntu - Aptitude Removed From Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

[TARA24]

While many believed "aptitude" will soon replace "apt-get" given the fact that it's a lot "smarter", it seems that's not the case in Ubuntu - in fact it's quite the opposite: aptitude has been removed from Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat though it is still available in the repositories.

This comes as a surprise, especially since Debian officially endorses aptitude over apt-get.

There was an attempt to remove aptitude a few releases back, but it was saved by the fact that it didn't take too much space on the CD. But for some unknown reason, the meerkats didn't like aptitude so it was removed from Ubuntu 10.10 as you can see HERE.

Update: apparently the reason for this is to free up some 13-14 mb of space from the CD.
Source: webupd8 and lists.ubuntu