Bug#674523: apt-get manpage: please document option --solver
Julian Andres Klode:
> On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 08:37:00PM +0000, Ximin Luo wrote:
>>> I have that patched locally too, that's not a big deal. The big deal is
>>> documenting the other options properly and not refer to the .txt file
>>> for developers that describes the entire protocol.
>>>
>>
>> What do you mean by "document the other options properly"?
>
> For example,
> APT::Solver::Preferences
> APT::Solver::Strict-Pinning
> should probably be documented in apt.conf if we document --solver.
>
Understood, this will indeed take me some more time.
>>> I also have no intention to manipulate the entity files for a simple niche
>>> option.
>>>
>>
>> $ sudo apt-get --solver x update
>> E: Command line option --solver is not understood in combination with the other options
>> 100
>>
>> From this I thought it was specific to "install", but now I see it's also accepted for some other things like "remove" and "purge". I'll update the patch.
>
> I'm not sure how that is related to what I wrote. What I wrote is very simple:
> The options should be documented where they belong, and not taint invocation
> examples defined in the .ent files.
>
I was agreeing with you, but also explaining why previously I added it specifically to the "install" section. I know there is a list of options.
> [..]
>
> In most cases, apt dependency solving works just fine. In the usual
> cases where it breaks down, like install stuff that depends on non-candidate
> versions, the external solvers are not much of a help. By default they
> will say no solution. You have to turn of Strict-Pinning first, and then
> possibly tweak your solver via Preferences to prefer not to install
> stuff from experimental, which is a non-trivial operation for the
> average user.
>
Based on my personal experience with apt vs aptitude, I would say that "most" is not "most" enough - and it's the complex corner cases [1] that typically cause the most frustration. So I'm also highly skeptical of the claim that "external solvers do not deliver substantially different results".
Many APT users would love to jump on some extra options to play with, so if you actually document these options, you'll get to see the power of "many eyes" at play - instead of relying on a team of 4-5 overworked easily-irritable developers to try to differentiate between complex dependency-resolution cases.
[1] I tried to explain some of them in my first post, so as to have a higher quality argument than "this sucks" but apparently trying to explain things in detail to the APT team gets called hate speech.
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