Hi, thanks for the reply, On Mon, Mar 07, 2016 at 12:05:07PM +0100, David Kalnischkies wrote: > On Tue, Mar 01, 2016 at 12:35:16PM +0000, Iain Lane wrote: > > This feels like an instance of a general problem: that adding new > > IndexTargets from Debian packages is a two step process of installing a > > package then updating a second time, so I'm wondering if you have any > > idaes about how to fix this more generally? > > Well, upgrades always were a two-step process in that you have to call > 'apt update' and after that 'apt full-upgrade'. Now: update, full-upgrade, update... three-step. > Worse, installing tools like apt-file or appstream always was a two-step > process of install (and configure) and then data-acquire on first (real) > start of the tool. > > That hasn't changed with the introduction of IndexTargets and I don't > see how that should be solved – assuming there is a problem as it isn't > exactly uncommon that tools after their installation require a bit of > configuration and then go on and download a bunch of extra stuff from > the web. If we would be talking about a webbrowser downloading its > antitracking/malware list, we wouldn't be talking… The browser would download this on behalf of the users, after offering any configuration that it wants to. For appstream at least, there isn't really any configuration - unless you are expecting users to go in and edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50appstream (how do you even turn this off per-repository?) > […] > That was solved so well (← generous self-praise) that the configuration > step disappeared at least for the majority of users. What remains is the > need for additional data acquisition on first use. As a user, I would > accept that given that its a common pattern. As an advanced user who > applied additional config I would actually prefer this style… (I am just > imagining how annoyed I would be if apt-file would somehow get the data > right after install without giving me a chance to configure it first as > I have a bunch of sources and archs I don't want/need Contents for…). Then apt-file's developers should turn it off until the user has configured it, no? If this situation is so terrible, then it is also unnaceptable that you have to somehow know to go and fiddle around with apt configuration before ever doing an update (and hope that no other tool does one for you in the meantime). > But back to topic: In the default install case (and if you really want > to) you could package the apt.conf-file separately in a -data package > (which presumably would have no dependencies) and install it as part of > your bootstrap so it is around at the time apt is first run. Then you > just have to run the post-processing (if any) at a later point. > > Might be that I am too used to all this stuff that I don't see the > problem with it anymore… The problem is that you can't install gnome-software and have it just work. Just Working on first install is something that Debian packages try to do if there is a reasonable default configuration. There absolutely is a reasonable default in this case. It seems to me that it is going to be so uncommon for people to want to tweak this that putting the burden on all users is quite harsh. I was hoping you could offer a solution, but instead you don't even seem to recognise there is anything to solve. I guess every user of IndexTargets has to work this out for themselves then. Thanks, -- Iain Lane [ iain@orangesquash.org.uk ] Debian Developer [ laney@debian.org ] Ubuntu Developer [ laney@ubuntu.com ]
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