--- Begin Message ---
- To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
- Subject: abt: apt-get install should always run update
- From: Jay Bazuzi <jay@bazuzi.com>
- Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:32:05 -0700
- Message-id: <20120331013205.6738.45236.reportbug@localhost6.localdomain6>
Package: abt
Version: apt
Severity: wishlist
Whenever someone gives instructions to run `apt-get install`, they say to run
`apt-get update` first.
There does not appear to be an important use case to run install without
running update. The default behavior of install should be to update first.
Sometimes update is slow. That happens when the local index files are far out
of date. In that case, it's particularly important to update first, so it
should happen automatically.
Sometimes update is not important, because the local index files are up to
date. In that case, the update is much faster than the install, so it doesn't
hurt to do it automatically.
If there is a marginal case where someone wants to install without updating,
that can be an option, but the default should be the 99% case that is a safe
bet.
The same is true for upgrade, etc.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
APT prefers oneiric-updates
APT policy: (500, 'oneiric-updates'), (500, 'oneiric-security'), (500, 'oneiric')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 3.0.0-17-generic (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
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--- Begin Message ---
> Whenever someone gives instructions to run `apt-get install`, they say to run
> `apt-get update` first.
Then, i would suggest you should tell the instructor to change
if you dislike his instructions.
If you don't like the offside ruleset in soccer you are not leaving a
player always behind to ensure that they will never take effect,
but instead vote for the removal of these rules - or do you?
> There does not appear to be an important use case to run install without
> running update. The default behavior of install should be to update first.
For someone with unlimited high-speed network access with a fast computer
this might be true, but not everyone has that.
My phone for example needs more than a minute to update all it's sources
even if there is no to minimal change. It also costs me extra money to get
these updates even through they are properly not needed just to download
the application i need now.
Even on my way faster laptop i prefer to split the task of downloading from
the installation as i have free high-speed access only at the university while
at home the speed as well as the volume is seriously limited.
So you are basically breaking all my usual usecases, beside a multitude
of more complicated ones in which some sources are temporary not available
(for an update), but are unneeded for this user-request (cds, local mirrors, …).
Leaving aside that apt-get is a low-level tool which can be expected to have
a lower "handholding" level than the average gui frontend -- which are also
the reason for being unable to change the default behavior even if we wanted
to as it breaks all sort of tools/users depending on the current behavior.
Therefore closing as wontfix.
As a hint: Configure the apt cronjob to do regular 'apt-get update's so that
you can forget about it. See APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists
and set it to e.g. "1" to run update each day.
Also: Feel free to define an alias (or whatever your $SHELL supports) to
run both together. You will hit yet another problem which we would need
to solve - which purely depends on the preference of the user:
Should ";" or "&&" be used to concatenate the two commands?
(mind the security implications either way)
Best regards
David Kalnischkies
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