Bug#478961: apt/aptitude finer grained locking
Package: apt
Version: 0.7.11
Severity: wishlist
Hello
The apt/aptitude tools only implement one global lock, it is not
possible to do multiple operations in parallel even if they are clearly
independent.
While package installation is performed by dpkg and there can be only
one dpkg running because of the format of the database it should be
possible to do parallel downloads.
Unless the apt design is very weird it should be possible to lock only
the single file that is currently being downloaded. That way one could
install a new package during dist-upgrade for example.
Of course, the new package could break the longer task but the download
is not wasted, and re-running the long task should correct the problem
quickly.
Some minor bits that could improve usability in such cases:
- warn that another apt is already running, and require a confirmation
to run another instance
- do not stop when it is not possible to get dpkg lock, wait for it
Thanks
Michal
-- Package-specific info:
-- (no /etc/apt/preferences present) --
-- (/etc/apt/sources.list present, but not submitted) --
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-3-amd64 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii debian-archive-keyring 2007.07.31 GnuPG archive keys of the Debian a
ii libc6 2.7-6 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libgcc1 1:4.3-20080202-1 GCC support library
ii libstdc++6 4.3-20080202-1 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
apt recommends no packages.
-- debconf-show failed
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