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Re: apt-listchanges, dpkg-preconfigure ordering in apt.conf



On Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 03:30:28PM -0700, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:

> On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> 
> > As an optimization, I skip all processing of debs that are from a source
> > package that I've already read changelogs for.  Reading control.tar.gz or the
> > status file is much faster than getting the changelog out of a large .deb.
> > Depending on where the changelog happens to be in the archive, you may have
> > to decompress and read the entire data.tar.gz.
> 
> Hm, fair enough. However the new information is complete enought that you
> can init APT's cache (which is free since it is already done)

Good idea.  I don't think I have any way to query the cache, though, except for
apt-cache.  Then, I have to parse out the whole thing to get the info for the
version I'm interested in.  I think I'll wait on the Perl bindings for that.

> > IMHO, the changelog should be part of control.tar.gz.
> 
> Would be nice for alot of things.
> 
> After you do this you should cookup an efficient caching changelog querier
> for the web site..

It would be nice if dinstall would put this information into a database.  Then
the CGI would be trivial and very quick.  dinstall doesn't seem to be packaged,
so I wouldn't know where to file this wishlist bug.

> > I'm already asking the user for their choices at install time via
> > debconf; why shouldn't I put them into the config file?  They can always
> > be changed with dpkg-reconfigure, or the user can ignore it altogether
> > and override with entries in apt.conf.  I would much prefer to dump
> > everything into the config file at once. 
> 
> hmm, debconf eh. I don't like mixing the 'how APT talks to you script'
> config with 'what the user wants' it makes upgrades unhappy.
> 
> Maybe you need a pair of files, apt.conf.d/foo and etc/apt/listchanges -
> just use the new include directive in your conf.d fragment ?
> 
> That sounds fair because then apt.conf remains the final config file that
> can override everything, you still have automatic upgrades of the cron.d
> fragment and debconf can fiddle with its own file.
> 
> Might need condition include however..

Yes, the issue is that whether or not apt-listchanges hooks into apt depends on
whether the user decides that they want it at install time.  I guess the best
solution is to create and maintain both config files in my maintainer scripts.
If the user wants it, the conf.d file will be created; otherwise, not.
/etc/apt/listchanges.conf will be created unconditionally with the preference
information.

-- 
 - mdz



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