[Aptitude-devel] Bug#564289: aptitude: block apt base for all time

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Control: tags -1 + wontfix


Hi Ivan,

2010-01-08 23:50 Ivan Borzenkov:
>Package: aptitude
>Version: 0.6.1.3-3
>Severity: wishlist
>
>When aptitude starts, it locks apt database to perform all the time, although
>the lock is only needed at the time of installation packages and update the
>lists.
>
>This is very inconvenient - if you forget running aptitude for the night, do
>not run for cron-apt or not be able to install any application from a remote
>console.
>
>Maybe better to block the base only when working with her, but not when you
>start the program as kpackage.

tl;dr: aptitude is an interactive program, and I don't think that this
is not a good idea to implement this, so marking as +wontfix.


aptitude has loaded in memory information about state of the system.  If
it unlocks after performing some actions, and the tools that you mention
remove data or change package states, aptitude will have wrong (and in
some way, /corrupt/) information, and the consequences will not
necessarily be pretty.

Even if the information could be re-read to check if everything is still
the same, this is quite complex and would be a lot of work for very
little gain and increased complexity.  And that does not work well for
aptitude's maintainability, which has already been struggling for many
years.

Even if the above was implemented, another side effect is that work by
the user could be lost.  For example: after carefully working on
selecting packages for upgrade and resolving dependency problems,
aptitude checks if the state is the same that it expects, it has to
inform the user than the selection has to be scrapped because packages
that it selected are no longer there, or the dependencies changed, etc.

So in principle this will remain a +wontfix, may be closed at a future
date.

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