[Aptitude-devel] Bug#484011: aptitude: Display archive-name|origin|Label in package view (add %t to Package-Display-Format)

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Control: tags -1 + moreinfo


Hi,

2015-01-07 23:48 Wookey:
>Package: aptitude
>Version: 0.6.11-1+b1
>Followup-For: Bug #484011
>
>I have been adding %t to the display format in aptitude for many years
>now. It's enormously useful and I really think it would be a benefit
>to users to make this the default . Changing it on every install is
>very dull.
>
>i.e change the default from
>%c%a%M%S %p %Z %v %V
>to
>%c%a%M%S %p %Z %t %v %V

I'm not sure if this is a good idea to do by default, because of the
attached example.


Probably most people use 80+ column-wide terminals nowadays if using
them as full screens or similar, but maybe many people continue to use
small terminals of that width, e.g. in tiled configurations.

Due to the +dfsgN of many of our versions (e.g. "3.2.3+dfsg1-2" in the
examples, with added "+b1" very often) and the long package names or
versions (and versions appear twice) of packages across the board for
different reasons [1], many lines do already don't appear fully even in
terminals much wider than 80 (also, see attached file again).

It looks to me that the's been an hyperinflation of package name and
version lengths in the last few years.


So I am not sure if it's a good idea to have this enabled by default,
since in many systems is not very useful (if only having one repository
enabled, plus perhaps "debug").  The packages can only come from
"stable" in that case, even if the repository is called "stable-debug".
Same for people who only use e.g. unstable or testing.

People who are mixing distros/suites are the ones more likely to know
that these options exist, same as you did, because you even mention it
in the bug reports.

I understand that it would be less annoying to have it by default,
instead of modifying it every time (or not every time, but at least if
you use multiple repositories in every machine that you administer, and
also wide terminals).

But since the extra space doesn't always come from free, and it's likely
to hurt more the people who use Debian in "simpler" use-cases and are
perhaps less learned in the matters of package managers, I am reluctant
to go ahead with this change.

So it will need further consideration.


Cheers.


[1] Like:
fonts-symbol, 2:102.7+LibO5.1.5~rc1-1
cube2, 0.0.20130203+dfsg-1+b2
libcmis, 0.5.1+git20160603-1
libgraphicsmagick-q16-3, 1.3.24+hg20160808-1
libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0, 1.8.3-1
libjson-glib-1.0-common, 1.2.0-1
qml-module-org-kde-bluezqt, 5.25.0-1
openstreetmap-map-icons-classic, 0.0.svn32805-1
qml-module-qtquick-controls-styles-breeze, 4:5.7.0-1
libdatetime-format-strptime-perl, 1.6800-1
golang-github-audriusbutkevicius-go-nat-pmp-dev, 0.0~git20150722.0.3a76720-1
libicsharpcode-nrefactory-csharp5.0-cil, 5.3.0+20130718.73b6d0f-3
libmono-system-componentmodel-dataannotations4.0-cil, 4.2.1.102+dfsg2-8
libmono-system-runtime-serialization-formatters-soap4.0-cil, 4.2.1.102+dfsg2-8
postgresql-9.5-python3-multicorn, 1.3.2-1
addresses-goodies-for-gnustep, 0.4.8-2+b1
cairo-dock-desklet-rendering-plug-in, 3.4.0-1.4+b2
gccgo-multilib-powerpc64-linux-gnu, 6.1.1--2

-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>