please do not remove non-Release-file repos (was Re: Moo! 9th preview of APT 1.1 released: Go and test new supercow powers)

[Thorsten Glaser <tg@mirbsd.de>]

Julian Andres Klode dixit:

[ lots of things ]

Thanks for most of that, I already thanked mvo privately for some
of the improvements… but, I have to comment on one of the things.
Please don’t take this eMail as negative but as “love your work,
except, please change one tiny thing to not break peoples’ use
cases”.

>Support repositories without a release file is deprecated, and warnings will be
>shown in such cases.

I assume “deprecated” means “scheduled to be removed in a future
version”. Please don’t do that. I use this to quickly create
local repositories, like this:

cat >/var/cache/pbuilder/result/0 <<'EOF'
#!/bin/sh
cd "$(dirname "$0")"
dpkg-scanpackages . >Packages
EOF
chmod +x /var/cache/pbuilder/result/0
cat >/etc/apt/sources.list.d/local.list <<'EOF'
deb [trusted=yes] file:///var/cache/pbuilder/result ./
EOF

Then I can just hit the “0” script after a build to make the
build result available. Being able to install .deb files from
the command line is absolutely amazing, but for some things,
I need them as a repo instead. (I do have a repo-creation
script, but the above is quicker and better for development
and unpublished stuff.)

Additionally, I use it heavily in a cowbuilder hookscript:
http://www.mirbsd.org/cvs.cgi/contrib/hosted/tg/deb/hookdir/D00local?rev=HEAD
As you can see, this even painstakingly avoids calling
apt-get update (to avoid surprises at build time when
repos that actually are external change, which may be
undesired).

The apt resolver in sbuild, and the one designed after it
for pbuilder (yet to be merged, unfortunately; I’d prefer
a lot to get rid of aptitude in build chroots), use this
very same feature and construct, including copying the
Packages file and calling only apt-cache gencaches, for
the installation of a pseudo package containing the build
dependencies. This can probably be done with apt install
on the .deb, or even apt-get build-dep on the .dsc, but
I like tools that can operate on all versions (I have
cowbuilder chroots down to sarge).

So, discourage it by all means (signed repos *are* the
way to go, after all), but don’t remove it, for those
who do have a use case for them.

Thanks for listening,
//mirabilos
-- 
18:47⎜<mirabilos:#!/bin/mksh> well channels… you see, I see everything in the
same window anyway      18:48⎜<xpt:#!/bin/mksh> i know, you have some kind of
telnet with automatic pong         18:48⎜<mirabilos:#!/bin/mksh> haha, yes :D
18:49⎜<mirabilos:#!/bin/mksh> though that's more tinyirc – sirc is more comfy