Bug#515000: apt: Single-package-per-line output
Package: apt
Version: 0.7.19+b1
Severity: wishlist
I prefer to use the command-line interface to upgrade my packages, using
"apt-get dist-upgrade". I find that the lists of packages to be
installed/removed/upgraded hard to read given that they are formatted with
multiple names per line.
Attached is what I stared at this morning when I ran apt-get dist-upgrade.
Particularly when there are a large number of packages to be changed, and even
more so when my console window is nice and wide and the text "fills out" the
screen, I find this list almost impossible to read. I would like it if apt had
a configuration or command-line option, like the 'ls -1' command, to show such
lists on a one-item-per-line basis.
Obviously this would mean I'd have to scroll around to see the complete list of
what's about to be done to my system, but I think it would make it much easier
to go through the list of exactly which packages are being changed. I like to
do "aptitude changelog" to see what's new in a particular package, sometimes
using that information to decide whether to hold it back or not.
-- Package-specific info:
-- (no /etc/apt/preferences present) --
-- (/etc/apt/sources.list present, but not submitted) --
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_CA, LC_CTYPE=en_CA (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii debian-archive-keyring 2008.04.16+nmu1 GnuPG archive keys of the Debian a
ii libc6 2.7-16 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libgcc1 1:4.3.2-1 GCC support library
ii libstdc++6 4.3.2-1 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
apt recommends no packages.
Versions of packages apt suggests:
ii apt-doc 0.7.19 Documentation for APT
ii aptitude 0.4.11.11-1~lenny1 terminal-based package manager
ii bzip2 1.0.5-1 high-quality block-sorting file co
ii dpkg-dev 1.14.23 Debian package development tools
ii lzma 4.43-14 Compression method of 7z format in
pn python-apt <none> (no description available)
ii synaptic 0.62.1 Graphical package manager
-- no debconf information
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
gs-common{a} libdns45{a} libisc45{a}
The following packages will be REMOVED:
libdns43{u} libisc44{u}
The following packages will be upgraded:
apache2 apache2-mpm-worker apache2-utils apache2.2-common apt apt-doc apt-utils avahi-daemon avahi-utils base-passwd bind9-host cpp-4.1 cpp-4.2
cpp-4.3 cups cups-bsd cups-client cups-common cupsys cupsys-client cupsys-common curl dbus dbus-x11 debian-archive-keyring dhcp3-client dhcp3-common
djvulibre-desktop dnsutils doc-base dpkg dpkg-dev dselect ed ffmpeg foomatic-filters-ppds g++-4.1 g++-4.3 gcc-4.1 gcc-4.1-base gcc-4.2 gcc-4.2-base
gcc-4.3 gcc-4.3-base ghostscript ghostscript-x gksu grub grub-common gs-esp gstreamer0.10-plugins-good hal hdparm hpijs hpijs-ppds hplip hplip-data
initramfs-tools iptables iso-codes kpowersave libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
libavahi-glib1 libavahi-qt3-1 libavcodec51 libavdevice52 libavformat52 libavutil49 libbind9-40 libc6 libc6-dev libc6-i686 libcdparanoia0 libcups2
libcupsimage2 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libcurl3-gnutls libcwidget3 libdbus-1-3 libdjvulibre21 libffi5 libgcc1 libgfortran3 libgnutls26 libgomp1 libgs8
libgsf-1-114 libgsf-1-common libhal-storage1 libhal1 libisccc40 libisccfg40 libjack0 libkrb53 liblwres40 libmad0 libmozjs1d libmysqlclient15off
libpam-modules libpam-runtime libpam0g libperl5.10 libpostproc51 libpq5 libqt3-mt libreadline5 libruby1.8 libsmbclient libsplashy1 libsqlite3-0
libssl0.9.8 libstdc++6 libstdc++6-4.1-dev libstdc++6-4.3-dev libsvn1 libswscale0 libwbclient0 libxine1 libxine1-bin libxine1-console libxine1-ffmpeg
libxine1-misc-plugins libxine1-plugins libxine1-x linux-image-2.6.26-1-686 linux-libc-dev locales man-db msttcorefonts mysql-client mysql-client-5.0
mysql-common ntp ntp-doc ntpdate openoffice.org openoffice.org-base openoffice.org-base-core openoffice.org-calc openoffice.org-common
openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-draw openoffice.org-emailmerge openoffice.org-filter-binfilter openoffice.org-filter-mobiledev
openoffice.org-help-en-gb openoffice.org-impress openoffice.org-java-common openoffice.org-kde openoffice.org-l10n-en-gb openoffice.org-math
openoffice.org-officebean openoffice.org-report-builder-bin openoffice.org-style-andromeda openoffice.org-style-crystal openoffice.org-style-tango
openoffice.org-writer openssh-client openssh-server openssl perl perl-base perl-doc perl-modules procps python-cairo python-uno python2.5
python2.5-minimal readline-common samba-common smbclient sudo synaptic texlive-base texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
texlive-fonts-recommended-doc texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-base-doc ttf-mscorefonts-installer ttf-opensymbol ucf whois wireshark
wireshark-common x11-utils xchat xchat-common xdg-utils xorg-docs xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-video-intel xterm xulrunner-1.9
The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed:
dvipdfmx gstreamer0.10-x hplip-gui lmodern
201 packages upgraded, 3 newly installed, 2 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 351MB of archives. After unpacking 2094kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] ^C
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