[Aptitude-devel] Bug#791662: aptitude: debdelta integration

[Axel Beckert]

Hi,

Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo wrote:
> >>It would be awesome if aptitude itself supported debdelta when installed. This
> >>would mean to run `debdelta-upgrade [selected package list]` as opposed to
> >>downloading the packages directly. I couldn't care less about the progress
> >>meter in this scenario, and having "something that works" would be better than
> >>just running "debdelta-upgrade" blindly and then continuing with aptitude.
> >
> >aptitude uses apt methods to download files. So I think that
> >integration should be done as an apt method for easier integration
> >with _any_ apt based package manager and to avoid duplicating the
> >integration effort.
> >
> >The documentation for developing such a backend is at
> >/usr/share/doc/libapt-pkg-doc/method.html/index.html (in the package
> >libapt-pkg-doc).
> 
> So I haven't looked into this, but it seems that the only option (or the
> most sensible, at any rate) is to use apt methods because this
> integration happens when acquiring the packages -- which aptitude
> doesn't do directly.

What I do to use debdelta with aptitude, is the following:

* Start "aptitude -u" inside a screen session
* Wait until the package lists are updated.
* Run "debdelta-upgrade" in a second window of the screen session
  while aptitude's TUI is still open.
* Any package scheduling change updates the amount of needed downloads
  in the status line (top right).

So I see two ways to implement this:

* reportbug/dpkg-reconfigure style: Immediate debdelta-upgrade of the
  select package. Probably has similar issues like the calling of
  reportbug/dpkg-reconfigure had.

* Tag which packages should be downloaded using debdelta-upgrade at
  download time. Needs an additional state and downloading all
  relevant packages using debdelta-upgrade before the actual apt
  method kicks in (as that won't download already present .debs as
  they're generated with debdelta-upgrade.)

An specific apt download method is probably the wrong way since that
would need to be hardcoded in /etc/apt/sources.list which seems not
the way in which debdelta-upgrade is used. (At least I use it very
selectively, e.g. I use it only if I'm online via some mobile and
limited internet connection.)

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
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