Hi,

I'm not sure whether this is the appropriate mailing list for the subject or
not. If not, please let me know the right place for this discussion.

There are a few features that would probably improve Debian's package Management
system (at least based on my needs). And maybe they exist somewhere I don't know
about.

1. system-bug-status: This is actually pretty easy to implement. This program
should periodically check the bug tracking system for bugs in installed packages
and report to the system administrator.
* It can prioritize the packages based on there importance, how frequently they
are used, possible security risks and manual configurations.
* It can be configured to check only for the bugs based on their classifications
(serious, important, normal, verified or not, etc.)
* For different combinations of these two it can determine the appropriate
period to check.

2. The ability to ban certain packages and (possibly) there dependent packages.
So that they wouldn't show up in the package manager at all.

I would really appreciate any ideas and suggestions.

Regards,
Eliad


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Eliad Bagherzadegan

Hi,

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 01:26:02AM +0430, Eliad Bagherzadegan wrote:
> I'm not sure whether this is the appropriate mailing list for the subject or
> not. If not, please let me know the right place for this discussion.
>
> There are a few features that would probably improve Debian's package Management
> system (at least based on my needs). And maybe they exist somewhere I don't know
> about.

A better place to send these suggestions is the APT mailing list,
deity@lists.debian.org - or wishlist bug reports against the package
manager.



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On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 01:26:02AM +0430, Eliad Bagherzadegan wrote:
[...]
> This program should periodically check the bug tracking system for
> bugs in installed packages and report to the system administrator.
[...]

While not necessarily a perfect match for the criteria you mention,
you'll probably want to take a look at these which provide similar
functionality:

http://packages.debian.org/apt-listbugs

http://packages.debian.org/devscripts (man rc-alert)

Perhaps a wishlist bug against one of the above is in order to
request the additional features you think might be useful?
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Op Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:26:02 +0430
schreef Eliad Bagherzadegan <eliad.bagherzadegan@gmail.com>:

> 2. The ability to ban certain packages and (possibly) there dependent
> packages. So that they wouldn't show up in the package manager at all.

You can do something like this using apt pinning. If you assign a
negative priority to a package, it will still be listed but apt will
refuse to install it.

For example, with the following stanza apt will refuse to install
libfoo:
Package: libfoo
Pin: version *
Pin-Priority: -1

Hello,

On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:25:29 +0200
Peter De Wachter <pdewacht@gmail.com> wrote:

> You can do something like this using apt pinning. If you assign a
> negative priority to a package, it will still be listed but apt will
> refuse to install it.

> For example, with the following stanza apt will refuse to install
> libfoo:
> Package: libfoo
> Pin: version *
> Pin-Priority: -1

Possibly, there should be some kind of automagical interface for this,
so one can type apt-... ... libfoo and get that stanza generated?

--
WBR, Andrew

"Andrew O. Shadoura" <bugzilla@tut.by> writes:

> On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:25:29 +0200
> Peter De Wachter <pdewacht@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> You can do something like this using apt pinning. If you assign a
>> negative priority to a package, it will still be listed but apt will
>> refuse to install it.
>
>> For example, with the following stanza apt will refuse to install
>> libfoo:
>> Package: libfoo
>> Pin: version *
>> Pin-Priority: -1
>
> Possibly, there should be some kind of automagical interface for this,
> so one can type apt-... ... libfoo and get that stanza generated?

It's actually very easy to write such a tool:

~# cat >/usr/local/sbin/apt-ignore
#! /bin/sh
set -e

ai_usage ()
{
cat <<EOF
Usage: apt-ignore PACKAGES...

Creates a new file in /etc/apt/preferences.d/ to ignore all of the
packages specified on the command-line.
EOF
}

if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then
ai_usage
exit 1
fi

for pkg in $@; do
cat <<EOF
Package: ${pkg}
Pin: version *
Pin-Priority: -1

EOF
done >$(tempfile -d /etc/apt/preferences.d/ -p ign-)
^D
~# chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/apt-ignore

There's little error handling, one could add support for --help, write a
manual page and probably a whole lot of other things (like using more
sensible filenames, and warning the user if trying to ignore a package
that does not exist (possibly only when a flag is specified - so one can
ignore packages that are not in the archive yet, but will be)), but I'll
leave that to someone who'd actually use the program.

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Hello,

On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 07:44:43 +0200
Gergely Nagy <algernon@madhouse-project.org> wrote:

> >> You can do something like this using apt pinning. If you assign a
> >> negative priority to a package, it will still be listed but apt
> >> will refuse to install it.
> >
> >> For example, with the following stanza apt will refuse to install
> >> libfoo:
> >> Package: libfoo
> >> Pin: version *
> >> Pin-Priority: -1
> >
> > Possibly, there should be some kind of automagical interface for
> > this, so one can type apt-... ... libfoo and get that stanza
> > generated?
>
> It's actually very easy to write such a tool:

Yes, but when you already know how to do that Before that, you need
to R the M anyway.

--
WBR, Andrew

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 01:26:02AM +0430, Eliad Bagherzadegan wrote:
> * It can prioritize the packages based on there importance, how frequently they
> are used, possible security risks and manual configurations.

http://packages.debian.org/lenny/debsecan

> I would really appreciate any ideas and suggestions.
>




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Hi,

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 01:26:02AM +0430, Eliad Bagherzadegan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm not sure whether this is the appropriate mailing list for the subject or
> not. If not, please let me know the right place for this discussion.

debian-user@lists.debian.org

> There are a few features that would probably improve Debian's package Management
> system (at least based on my needs). And maybe they exist somewhere I don't know
> about.
>
> 1. system-bug-status: This is actually pretty easy to implement. This program
> should periodically check the bug tracking system for bugs in installed packages
> and report to the system administrator.
> * It can prioritize the packages based on there importance, how frequently they
> are used, possible security risks and manual configurations.
> * It can be configured to check only for the bugs based on their classifications
> (serious, important, normal, verified or not, etc.)
> * For different combinations of these two it can determine the appropriate
> period to check.
>
> 2. The ability to ban certain packages and (possibly) there dependent packages.
> So that they wouldn't show up in the package manager at all.
>
> I would really appreciate any ideas and suggestions.

As others poited out with short messages, there are ways already in
Debian and you just did not notice them since you are new to Debian.
I know it is a bit obscure. It may help you to read basic documentation
linked from:
http://www.debian.org/doc/

There you find my "Debian Reference":
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/

Especially "Chapter 2. Debian package management":

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html

Good luck.

Osamu


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Additional to this, my suggestion:

1. An option, to read the changelog BEFORE a package is installed or upgraded.

2. An option, to see, which files will be installed BEFORE the first
installation or at renewing (although, I think, apt-file might be able to
handle this somehow, not sure)

3. And last but not least: An option, to blacklisting broken packages! (very
important)

For Point 3., some thoughts: In the past there were sometimes broken packages
in debian/testing, which were running fine in stable, were fixed in sid, but
never fixed in testing, until they went from sid to testing. (At the moment
there is a problem with the kernel "unable to enumerate usb device", which is
fixed in 2.6.39.1 , but all kernels between 2.6.32-5-amd64 (version 34) and the
mentioned kernel version above are broken. How are those problems handled? If
they are handled at all!

Please don't feel bothered, but that is a problem, which I discovered from
time to time. I thought about that, but found no solution yet (except by
transferring working packages fron sid to testing as fast as possible).

Thanks for your patience!

Hans






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