Re: Bug#88968: Possibly leaves stuff in apt.conf, dies when it does

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>]

On Thu, Mar 08, 2001 at 07:28:38PM -0500, Daniel Burrows wrote:

>   (b) Assuming the above doesn't happen, you still run into trouble if the
>   user is using an apt frontend other than apt-get.  These programs generally
>   parse /etc/apt/apt.conf on startup and use its values while the program is
>   running.  If the user upgrades from inside a frontend, then tries to do
>   another dpkg run, the frontend will use the old apt.conf settings to invoke
>   apt-listchanges.  (this is, I believe, what happened to me.  It certainly
>   explains why restarting the frontend "solved" the problem)

This is an interesting problem.  I'll close the bug against apt-listchanges,
but it might be worth reporting a bug against aptitude to reload the
configuration, re-exec itself, or something after performing an upgrade.  What
does it currently do if, for example, apt is upgraded?  Is that case handled
specially?  What if, say, the Dir hierarchy in apt.conf is changed?

This is definitely a problem that current and future frontends need to
consider.  I'm CCing the APT development team to see what they think.

-- 
 - mdz