[Aptitude-devel] Bug#687888: usability: shouldn't list each arch as a separate package

[Michael Below]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.6.8.1-1
Severity: minor

Dear Maintainer,

since I added the i386 arch to my amd64 setup, the package list in
aptitude nearly doubled in length: there are two entries for each
binary package, one amd64, one i386. Arch is treated as a part of
the package name.

This is impractical when scrolling through the list. This gets
worse if more architectures are installed.

I think aptitude needs another dimension in its user interface,
besides package names and package versions. There should be
another column for available architectures (if there are more than
one) instead of treating it like a part of the package name.

Thanks for your work.

Michael

-- Package-specific info:
Terminal: xterm
$DISPLAY is set.
which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.6.8.1 compiled at Aug 28 2012 07:23:30
Compiler: g++ 4.7.1
Compiled against:
  apt version 4.12.0
  NCurses version 5.9
  libsigc++ version: 2.2.10
  Ept support enabled.
  Gtk+ support disabled.
  Qt support disabled.

Current library versions:
  NCurses version: ncurses 5.9.20110404
  cwidget version: 0.5.16
  Apt version: 4.12.0

aptitude linkage:
	linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fffd5fff000)
	libapt-pkg.so.4.12 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.4.12 (0x00007fa37c83d000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007fa37c60d000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007fa37c3e3000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fa37c1de000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007fa37bede000)
	libept.so.1.aptpkg4.12 => /usr/lib/libept.so.1.aptpkg4.12 (0x00007fa37bc3d000)
	libxapian.so.22 => /usr/lib/libxapian.so.22 (0x00007fa37b858000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fa37b641000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00007fa37b395000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.49.0 => /usr/lib/libboost_iostreams.so.1.49.0 (0x00007fa37b17c000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fa37af60000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007fa37ac58000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fa37a9d6000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007fa37a7c0000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fa37a438000)
	libutil.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libutil.so.1 (0x00007fa37a235000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fa37a031000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007fa379e20000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007fa379c1b000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fa379a12000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fa37d1eb000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (900, 'testing'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'proposed-updates'), (500, 'stable'), (10, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.5-trunk-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii  aptitude-common           0.6.8.1-1
ii  libapt-pkg4.12            0.9.7.4
ii  libboost-iostreams1.49.0  1.49.0-3.1
ii  libc6                     2.13-35
ii  libcwidget3               0.5.16-3.4
ii  libept1.4.12              1.0.9
ii  libgcc1                   1:4.7.1-7
ii  libncursesw5              5.9-10
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0c2a        2.2.10-0.2
ii  libsqlite3-0              3.7.13-1
ii  libstdc++6                4.7.1-7
ii  libtinfo5                 5.9-10
ii  libxapian22               1.2.12-1
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.7.dfsg-13

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
ii  apt-xapian-index                0.45
ii  aptitude-doc-en [aptitude-doc]  0.6.8.1-1
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl   1.2.0-1
ii  sensible-utils                  0.0.7

Versions of packages aptitude suggests:
ii  debtags  1.10.1
ii  tasksel  3.12

-- no debconf information