Recently, all relevant packages needed to run mpm (the mancoosi package manager) landed in debian (thanks ralf and zack !). Now it should be a tad easier to run mpm and to play with it. The code of mpm is available on the mancoosi svn repository (user/pass : mancoosi/mancoosi) . To run it, you also need to install python-apt.
These are all cudf solvers you can use as mpm backends. They use different solving techniques and were implemented for the MISC competition : mccs packup * aspcud
In addition, you need the CUDF solver integration for APT / MPM , that is the component in charge of translating the apt/mpm installation problem to cudf and to provide a solution back to apt/mpm * apt-cudf
The last (optional) component is the dudf-save that allows you to report an installation problem back to us . mancoosi contest (dudfsave) is avalaible for download at http://mancoosi.debian.net/
the mpm command line is still not very user friendly, but since it is not meant to be used by final users or production systems, I think I’ll not spend too much time to add all bells and whistles.
enjoy.