(sorry if you [Jason and Ross] get this twice. I'm not familiar enough with
the bug system to be sure I'm not sending this into oblivion unless I cc you
guys.)
I've got a theory on what might be going on.
1. you [Ross] installed Debian GNU/Linux
2. you downloaded some .deb, burned a CD with some, put others on your HD
3. (at some point you upgraded apt to 0.3.16?)
4. you added paths to /etc/apt/sources.list for your local .debs, but with
bogus or non-existant Packages files.
5. you ran apt-get update. This told apt that certain packages were
available locally on your HD or CDROM, based on the Packages file in the
directories. There are some packages that apt thinks are local, but that
actually don't exist locally.
6. you run apt-get upgrade. It looked at what you told it was in local
mirrors and what was in its cache, and calculated that 6 packages would
need to be downloaded.
7. apt-get downloads the 6 packages, then starts installing. However, 3 of
the packages it thought were available aren't there, so it goes off and
downloads them too. (there's your 3 extra downloads.)
So, I think this sounds more like a feature than a bug :) If you want to
lie to apt about what you have, you can't expect it to calculate the right
download amounts/sizes. It still manages to work right, and leave the
system upgraded the way you wanted, doing everything you asked and working
around the bogus package info.
It could make sure the local packages were really there, but it would have
to stat every local package file to make sure it was there. This is not all
that useful, IMHO. Note that it would really suck if you had a couple CDs
and apt made you switch CDs just so it could count up the packages on them.
It might be interesting to find out what apt-get -d upgrade does, since
that will only download the debs, not install them. It would probably only
download the 6 it thought it needed, and stop.
There's probably a program to build a Packages file from a tree of .debs,
so use that make correct Packages files for the debs you download, if you
want to do it that way. (I guess that doesn't help for already-burned
CDROMS, though :)
happy hacking,
--
#define X(x,y) x##y
DUPS Secretary ; http://is2.dal.ca/~dups/
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes.phys. , dal.ca)
"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack
my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BCE