Feature #15584

Wrap apt to download lists if there are none

Added by sajolida 2018-05-05 16:58:22 . Updated 2019-06-17 12:01:20 .

Status:
Confirmed
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
Start date:
2018-05-05
Due date:
% Done:

0%

Feature Branch:
Type of work:
Code
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Additional Software Packages
Deliverable for:

Description

An alternative to Feature #12238 would be to get apt to download the lists of packages if there are none on the system.

It would have all the advantages of shipping the lists Feature #12238 except saving download time to people with no persistent storage. Installing additional package is probably more rare for people who don’t have a persistent storage than for people who have one.

It would have none of the disadvantages of Feature #12238:

  • It’s not making our ISO image bigger.
  • It’s not distributing outdated lists that might make people miss security upgrades.

Subtasks

Related issues

Related to Tails - Feature #12238: Ship full APT lists in the live file system Confirmed 2017-02-14
Related to Tails - Feature #14544: Spend software developer time on smallish UX improvements In Progress 2018-08-31

History

#1 Updated by sajolida 2018-05-05 17:01:49

  • Description updated

During the user testing of the Additional Software, all 5 participants ended up doing stuff on the command line. They were all using Linux as their regular operating system but their expertise on the command line ranged from Linux professional to basic copy-paster.

  • 3 of them because it was instructed on the Mumble website. Probably many Linux applications do the same.
  • 2 of them because they were used to doing that to install packages.

#2 Updated by intrigeri 2018-06-05 14:01:39

See data/wrappers/apt-get in our Git tree. Wrap apt and apt-get but only for interactive shells.

#3 Updated by sajolida 2018-06-05 16:04:52

  • Status changed from New to Confirmed
  • Parent task set to Bug #15567
  • Affected tool set to Additional Software Packages

We’ll try to do that but it’s not a blocker to deliver SponsorW_2017.

#4 Updated by sajolida 2018-06-05 16:06:59

  • related to Feature #12238: Ship full APT lists in the live file system added

#5 Updated by alant 2018-07-28 01:44:18

  • Status changed from Confirmed to In Progress

Applied in changeset commit:190397594f38ea5071d4cfb10e8ff8e0b51ef2ec.

#6 Updated by Anonymous 2018-08-07 14:48:15

  • Assignee set to sajolida
  • QA Check set to Ready for QA

Why does this ticket have no assignee and no qa check?
Tentatively assigning to sajolida.

#7 Updated by sajolida 2018-08-08 18:34:44

  • Assignee deleted (sajolida)
  • QA Check deleted (Ready for QA)

Because we decided it was not part of SponsorW.

#8 Updated by Anonymous 2018-08-19 10:59:13

Ack, thanks!

#9 Updated by Anonymous 2018-09-03 17:28:06

Unparenting so we can close the parent ticket.

#10 Updated by sajolida 2018-09-04 14:55:40

  • related to Feature #14544: Spend software developer time on smallish UX improvements added

#11 Updated by Anonymous 2018-12-19 13:58:50

#12 Updated by intrigeri 2019-03-08 15:18:16

  • Status changed from In Progress to Confirmed

#13 Updated by segfault 2019-06-06 15:59:36

Running apt update on Tails with an already updated package index still takes ~10 seconds. So if we would implement this, each apt install command would take about 10 seconds longer. Even if you just had a typo in the package name or already installed 10 other packages in the same session. I think that would be pretty annoying.

#14 Updated by intrigeri 2019-06-07 09:37:16

> Running apt update on Tails with an already updated package index still takes ~10 seconds. So if we would implement this, each apt install command would take about 10 seconds longer. Even if you just had a typo in the package name or already installed 10 other packages in the same session. I think that would be pretty annoying.

@segfault, I don’t quite follow. Did you miss the “if there are none” part of this idea?

#15 Updated by segfault 2019-06-17 11:54:49

intrigeri wrote:
> > Running apt update on Tails with an already updated package index still takes ~10 seconds. So if we would implement this, each apt install command would take about 10 seconds longer. Even if you just had a typo in the package name or already installed 10 other packages in the same session. I think that would be pretty annoying.
>
> @segfault, I don’t quite follow. Did you miss the “if there are none” part of this idea?

Yes indeed, I did miss that.

#16 Updated by segfault 2019-06-17 12:01:20

Note that dnf, the default package manager in fedora, does something similar:

https://dnf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/command_ref.html#metadata-synchronization

It stores the time the repository data was last updated and automatically synchronizes it before a dnf operation if the last synchronization was too long before (48h by default).