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Bug#824065: marked as done (apt: please provide an option to set DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive)

Your message dated Thu, 12 May 2016 11:04:48 +0200
with message-id <20160512090448.GA24980@crossbow>
and subject line Re: Bug#824065: apt: please provide an option to set DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
has caused the Debian Bug report #824065,
regarding apt: please provide an option to set DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
824065: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=824065
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--- Begin Message --- 
Package: apt
Version: 1.2.11
Severity: wishlist

Hi!
I see confusion among users who want to run everything invoked from apt
non-interactively.  This is what DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive does, but
it's not documented anywhere an user is likely to look, such as the manpages
for apt, apt-get or dpkg.  And even if it was, it's somewhat cumbersome to use.

Thus, what about adding a command-line switch to set it?  I'd propose -Y,
implying -y.

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 09:25:46PM +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> I see confusion among users who want to run everything invoked from apt
> non-interactively.  This is what DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive does, but

No it doesn't. It asks debconf to use a frontend called noninteractive,
which seems to have your desired property. That is all. It has no effect
whatsoever on dpkgs conffile prompts were I would like to bet quite
a bit of money on the inability to decide which of the many possible
choices should be the non-interactive one as all of them can break
systems.

It doesn't "effect" harder apt questions like unauthenticated
packages or the prompt to change your CD/DVD now.

Further more there are hooks run by apt and dpkg who could potentially
ask questions. Also, debian-policy requires packages to use a program
like debconf – not: only debconf – in §3.9.1 and grants exceptions to
essential packages. Neither would be effected by that setting either.
And that only limits packages which actually abide to debian-policy,
while apt isn't specific to Debian that option clearly would be, …


I could go on, but there is no point. I think these few paragraphs alone
show that this option would need to be shipped with more fine print than
a typical mobile phone contract, which makes it very undesirable to
have, especially if it eats up precious commandline letters for the
dubious benefit of less typing to confuse users even more. Closing for
this reason alone.

Non-interactivity is simply a lie if you talk about Debian package
management.


Deep down I believe even -y is a mistake, but I don't tell that to
anyone because we can't change that anyhow. It should have been
--confirm-solution or something like that…


If we wanted an effective "no questions asked" you are probably better
of creating an "eatthequestions" package similar to "eatmydata" which
wraps apt (or whatever) in enough environment variables and heuristics
to have it run truly non¹²³-interactive. The good thing about that would
be that you don't need to change src:apt – which is traditionally very
hard to get past whoever is in charge of maintaining the archive you
target – but you can change your wrapper to include new heuristics and
backport it easily to everything.


Best regards

David Kalnischkies

¹ not available in all countries
² mobile rates may differ
³ first born child must be sacrificed to achieve best results

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