Bug#649451: hard-coded gzip-only support in apt-cdrom
On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 01:26, Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> wrote:
> I've just added support for translated description files into
> debian-cd, creating Translation-$LANG.bz2 on CDs to match the
> archive. A problem report from a user shortly afterwards described
> apt-cdrom issues using a DVD generated with this new code. [1] I've
> dug through the code in cdrom.cc and tagfile.cc and I've found that
> apt simply does not support .bz2 versions of the Translation files
> *from CD*. AFAICS it *does* support them in the main archive via HTTP
> etc. That's a bit of a surprise, to say the least.
I am not that surprised, given that apt-cdrom is touched only once
in a blue moon - last serious change is from 2009 (udev), the one
before that is adding Translation support in 2007, the 2005 change
is imported from the previous vcs… You get the pattern.
All in all its properly save to say that the code you looked at mostly
comes straight from the last millennium (literally speaking!)…
My personal excuse is that i haven't used it a single time, so i am
properly not the best one to hack on it, but i fear the rest of the
(lets count optimistic) trio seems to have the same excuse…
So after this little rant^Whistory lesson (which hopefully prevents you
from expecting a response after 4 days next time as i could write more
of these stories otherwise ;) ) i am willing to promise to try to have a
look at it this week(end), if nobody else wants of course,
but we need testers either way - volunteers?
> As it is, on CDs/DVDs we're stuck with only using gzip for various of
> the index files now until wheezy+1. That means we're going to be
> wasting (maybe a lot) more space on CDs than necessary.
You could ask stable managers for permission for a stable-upgrade.
+squeeze1 already adds some xz parts (for apt-utils tools).
Note though that squeeze doesn't support xz for index files
downloadable from the net, as i implemented it only in 0.8.12 after
hearing it the first time on debian-devel.
Not that it had ever reached deity@ or even the bts. As it is usually for
deities, they are expected to know everything and also before people even
think about it…
So sorry for wasting cd space, but time travel isn't stable yet and
my crystal ball was in repair in 2010, so i couldn't foresee what people
in 2011 expected me to have done. Given that my crystal ball is still
broken, it might be worthwhile to request the features expected to be
present in wheezy+1 NOW instead of then they are needed and serious
bugs in your eyes in 2012/3…
Thanks for consideration and best regards
David Kalnischkies
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