I frequently see a pattern in image build/refresh scripts where a set of packages is installed, and then all packages are updated:

apt update
apt install -y pkg1 pkg2 pkg2
apt dist-upgrade -y

While it s not much, this results in redundant work. For example reading/writing package database, potentially running triggers (man-page refresh, ldconfig, etc). The internal package dependency resolution stuff isn t actually different: install will also do upgrades of needed packages, etc. Combining them should be entirely possible, but I haven t found a clean way to do this yet. The best I ve got so far is:

apt update
apt-cache dumpavail   dpkg --merge-avail -
(for i in pkg1 pkg2 pkg3; do echo "$i install")   dpkg --set-selections
apt-get dselect-upgrade

This gets me the effect of running install and upgrade at the same time, but not dist-upgrade (which has slightly different resolution logic that d I d prefer to use). Also, it includes the overhead of what should be an unnecessary update of dpkg s database. Anyone know a better way to do this? Update: Julian Andres Klode pointed out that dist-upgrade actually takes package arguments too just like install. *face palm* I didn t even try it I believed the man-page and the -h output. It works perfectly!

2020, Kees Cook. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

* Finally! Thanks to Sham who forced me for this

* Yes. $subject is true!! We re going to have Mini DebConf here in India. (You may call it Micro too!) If you re not going to DebConf10 and/or nearby Pune, India (or even far!) you re most welcome! Many many thanks to Praveen for taking lead & organizing event. We plan to focus on getting <more> people into the Debian. Good thing is that many Ubuntu contributors will be there and that will probably bring both distribution much more closer! (Hello, Onkar!) Many thanks to Nexenta for traveling support. And, since Sham is also attending We can have MiniNexenta Meet also! Anil and Garrett are meeting on the other end of the world at the same time Be there!! Stay tuned at Wiki page for more update. My blogging frequency is not better nowadays..

$ notAptable --help
notAptable [--version] [--help] [-s/var/lib/dpkg/status] [-aptf/path/to/aptavail/equiv/file] [-aptx'apt-cache dumpavail'] [-ipackagename]
List packages which are installed on the system but are not known by apt.
Options:
-s Path to file to use when grepping for installed packages
-aptf Path to file to use when grepping for the apt-able packages
-aptx Same as above but instead of being a file the specified command is executed
-i Exclude a package that would otherwise be listed
When not overriden by an option the default files/data is up to grep-dctrl's defaults
This script is said to report packages that were removed from the archive
(except those listed in /home/raphael/.listNotAptable.ignore)

Copyright 2008 by Raphael Geissert <atomo64@gmail.com>

---

With this simple script I wrote I got rid of about 45 packages (libraries, programs, etc, etc) what are no longer in the archive.
My question is: on what package should this script be shipped? debian-goodies? devscripts?

Hope somebody else finds this script useful and puts it in their weekly cronjob as I did :)
Get it from http://alioth.debian.org/~atomo64-guest/notAptable until it is shipped in some package.

Chat with bubulle These are a few notes from a chat with Bubulle about package descriptions. Check a description against keywords To see what packages would match certain keywords, and how:

ept-cache dumpavail keyword1 keyword2   grep-dctrl -sPackage,Search-Score .

To check how much a package would match certain keywords:

#!/bin/sh
PACKAGE=$1
shift
ept-cache dumpavail "$@"   grep-dctrl -sSearch-Score -FPackage -X $PACKAGE

Technical details in the descriptions The programming language used to implement the software and the X UI toolit used by the software can also be removed from descriptions: Debtags offer a better place to store this information, and most package managers now show tags together with the package description. Submitting descriptions for review Submitting descriptions for review to the Smith Review Project means posting them to the publicly archived debian-l10n-english mailing list, and that may turn off some. It would also be interesting to change the description template generated by debhelper to mention the Smith Review Project and a link to description guidelines Description guidelines There are various description guidelines that could use consolidation and eventually inclusion in the Developers Reference. For example, Writing package descriptions is a very good guide, but most of the unsolved issues at the end have actually now been solved by the Smith Review Project.

I have now started a series of experimental versions of grep-dctrl, in which I intend to implement most, if not all, of the outstanding feature requests. The proud first new feature is grep-aptavail, a grep-available lookalike that takes its input from apt-cache dumpavail by default. The grep-dctrl 2.2 release is therefore for all you grep-available users out there that kept dselect only to run dselect update. It will be installed in experimental shortly. (Note that you need to explicitly select experimental by pinning or by the -t switch to apt-get in order to install this version.)