Bug#193525: apt: must download entire packages file just to make sure got the latest

[Dan Jacobson <jidanni@dman.ddts.net>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.5.4
Severity: wishlist
File: /usr/bin/apt-get

For us offline modem users, is there a better way, when one wants the
ease of
# apt-get install  some-tiny-package

but doesn't want the overhead of
# apt-get update
almost every day, just to make sure one is getting the latest
some-tiny-package.

So it occurred to me that instead of fetching e.g.
http://debian.linux.org.tw/debian/pool/main/l/linkchecker/linkchecker_1.8.12-1_i386.deb
why not fetch
http://debian.linux.org.tw/debian/pool/main/l/linkchecker/linkchecker_latest.deb
i.e. a symlink to the latest version on the server.

Indeed, my miracle idea could be phased in without disturbing the
present system, and */*_latest.deb's on the server wouldn't disturb anything.

For simple packages that just get newer, this seems like it will
work...

Oh, then one must rename the package after retrieval.  Also maybe the
dependencies have changed....

Ok, well that was fun, never mind.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux debian 2.4.20-k7 #1 Tue Jan 14 00:29:06 EST 2003 i686
Locale: LANG=zh_TW.Big5, LC_CTYPE=zh_TW.Big5

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6                        2.3.1-10    GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2       1:2.95.4-15 The GNU stdc++ library

-- no debconf information