Making apt-get powercut-proof

[Milosz Derezynski]

Just by my feel of gut I'd guess that some unexperienced people who simply
don't want to wait long might find it encouraging to just skip packages even
if they are told that this might be normal. However if a package
installation aborts (not like with scrollkeeper but simply fails), which is
an evident sign of a problem, then being able to skip this item within
update-manager or synaptic would be great I think.

2008/5/6 Andrew Sayers <andrew-ubuntu-devel at pileofstuff.org>:

> Milosz Derezynski wrote:
> > It could work if after the package is skipped apt recreates the
> > dependency list; this might be bad to oversee though (especially without
> > a GUI), however adding a printout a la "These packages were originally
> > meant to be installed: $PACKAGES Since package $PACKAGE was removed
> > after the update began, they are NOT going to be installed [Y/n]" where
> > n would retry with the same package included again. One could even think
> > of a skip-broken-packages option. Since non-installed packages remain in
> > the dpkg/apt system as to-be-upgraded there is no real problem (if apt
> > would additionally save the status then in update-manager they could be
> > shown as unchecked with a hint that they failed to install).
>
> I don't think I'd want the actual apt-get command line to be
> second-guessing me, so how about this for a feature suggestion (to
> update-manager and to synaptic):
>
> If a package takes more than 60 seconds to install, force the "details"
> window to open, and also present a dialogue box saying:
>
> $PACKAGE has taken more than a minute to install.  This is normal for
> some packages, but might be a sign of a problem.
>
> The following packages depend on $PACKAGE: $DEPENDENCIES
>
> [ Stop installing ] [ Skip this package ] [ Keep waiting ]
>
> Clicking "stop installing", obviously, stops the installation.  The
> package that failed is then highlighted in the main window.
>
> "Skip this package" kills the PID of the shell script that apt is
> running.  I'd have to check, but I think that apt does the right thing
> in that situation.
>
> Clicking "keep waiting" sends the dialogue box away for 5 minutes (then
> for 10 minutes, then for 15 minutes...)
>
>        - Andrew
>
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