LucidAptIndexMetadata
Launchpad Entry: foo
Created: MichaelVogt
Contributors:
Packages affected: apt
Summary
Apt should provide a mechanism to extend it so that it downloads additional metadata on a apt-get update. This metadata may be opaque to apt itself.
Release Note
TBD
Rationale
Its important to keep the Packages data and any additional meta-data in sync. The natural way of doing this is to provide a mechanism in libapt itself that will fetch the required files.
User stories
Joe uses software-center and gets a new icon and application in the software-center when acrobat reader becomes available.
Design
Apt is extended so that it can download additional indexfiles. Packages that require such metadata (like debtags or software-center) should just drop in a configuration file into the right directory to make apt download it. The native apt configuration format should be used. In the future a plugin system for more complicated use-cases should be added.
Download failures of additional meta-data should not be fatal. A configuration item like
Acquire::Deb::AdditionalIndexFiles { "debtags"; "app-install"; };maybe with simple substitutions to allow multiple languages.
Implementation
See work items in the blueprint.
Test/Demo Plan
A test archive with some additional files needs to be created to test if the download is actually working.
Unresolved issues
- Signature handling
- triggering application processing
- diffs
BoF agenda and discussion
Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.