[Aptitude-devel] Bug#698335: aptitude: "aptitude why" should have a better message about non-installed packages

[Alexander E. Patrakov]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.6.8.2-1
Severity: minor

Dear Maintainer,

on this computer I don't have argyll. However, here is what aptitude
thinks about my (obviously stupid) question about the reason why it is
installed:

$ aptitude why argyll
i   bacula-fd                 Suggests   bacula-traymonitor
p   bacula-traymonitor        Suggests   kde | gnome-desktop-environment
p   gnome-desktop-environment Depends    gnome (>= 1:3.4+7)
p   gnome                     Depends    gnome-color-manager (>= 3.4)
p   gnome-color-manager       Recommends argyll

I'd prefer this:

$ aptitude why argyll
Package 'argyll' is not installed. Here is why you may want it:
i   bacula-fd                 Suggests   bacula-traymonitor
p   bacula-traymonitor        Suggests   kde | gnome-desktop-environment
p   gnome-desktop-environment Depends    gnome (>= 1:3.4+7)
p   gnome                     Depends    gnome-color-manager (>= 3.4)
p   gnome-color-manager       Recommends argyll

or even just "Package 'argyll' is not installed."

-- Package-specific info:
Terminal: xterm
$DISPLAY not set.
which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.6.8.2 compiled at Nov  7 2012 07:08:03
Compiler: g++ 4.7.2
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 =>  (0x00007fff67f9b000)
	libapt-pkg.so.4.12 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.4.12
(0x00007f2edac7e000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007f2edaa4e000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007f2eda824000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0
(0x00007f2eda61f000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007f2eda31f000)
	libept.so.1.aptpkg4.12 => /usr/lib/libept.so.1.aptpkg4.12 (0x00007f2eda07e000)
	libxapian.so.22 => /usr/lib/libxapian.so.22 (0x00007f2ed9c99000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007f2ed9a82000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0
(0x00007f2ed97d6000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.49.0 => /usr/lib/libboost_iostreams.so.1.49.0
(0x00007f2ed95bd000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f2ed93a1000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f2ed9099000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f2ed8e17000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f2ed8c01000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f2ed8876000)
	libutil.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libutil.so.1 (0x00007f2ed8673000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f2ed846f000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007f2ed825e000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007f2ed8059000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f2ed7e50000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f2edb5fb000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=ru_RU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii  aptitude-common           0.6.8.2-1
ii  libapt-pkg4.12            0.9.7.7
ii  libboost-iostreams1.49.0  1.49.0-3.1
ii  libc6                     2.13-37
ii  libcwidget3               0.5.16-3.4
ii  libept1.4.12              1.0.9
ii  libgcc1                   1:4.7.2-4
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                4.7.2-4
ii  libtinfo5                 5.9-10
ii  libxapian22               1.2.12-2
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.7.dfsg-13

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
pn  apt-xapian-index                <none>
pn  aptitude-doc-en | aptitude-doc  <none>
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl   1.2.0-1
ii  sensible-utils                  0.0.7

Versions of packages aptitude suggests:
pn  debtags  <none>
ii  tasksel  3.14

-- no debconf information

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov