Disable prompts while installing a Debian package

Question

How can i disable totally the prompts that appear while installing a Debian package, i've used all the options that i've found but there are some packages that are still prompting.

I'm using this command:

apt-get -y --allow-unauthenticated --force-yes -o DPkg::Options::="--force-overwrite" -o DPkg::Options::="--force-confdef" install x11-common

Why the x11-common package is still prompting? how can i get rid of these prompts?

Thanks in advance

--Victor

Edit: just to clarify, the prompts are not "yes/no" prompts, are open questions in a coloured screen (typical two color screen) but i want to set the default option of these questions

Answer 1

Select a new front end by setting your env.

DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -y install x11-common

I use this all the time in automating package installation with cfengine.

Answer 2

Not having manually install x11-common, I am not sure what questions you are being asked. But if they are coming from debconf, then you should be able to pre-answer the questions with debconf-set-selections.

Answer 3

You need to dpkg-reconfigure debconf and tell it to "Ignore questions with a priority less than: Critical".

This doesn't get you out of answering critical questions.

Answer 4

Not very elegant but you could try using the builtin yes command. yes | apt-get install [package]

http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl1_yes.htm.

Answer 5

Take a look at gnu expect: http://directory.fsf.org/project/expect/

Answer 6

In Debian, what you are looking for is called preseeding. Here is a link to the wiki page http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed

Answer 7

This is for Ubuntu, but will work perfectly on a debian system: https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/installation-guide/i386/preseed-creating.html