Hi Francesco, Quoting Francesco Poli (2026-07-20 23:23:26) > Hello Johannes, nice to read you! :-) Thanks for your bug report.
thank you for replying this quickly! > > I'm providing user support for the MNT Reform platform. Since we usually > > require packages more recent than what is in Debian stable for the ARM64 > > systems to work correctly, our users are provided with a Debian unstable > > installation. > > Well, after reading this, my first thought was: "Please don't expose > non-tech-savvy users to Debian unstable, unless you are willing to > educate them all!". > > And don't get me wrong, educating users is a noble goal in itself, so it > might be worth the hassle... But it sure requires time and effort. True. I have over 1.7k posts at https://community.mnt.re not all of which are user support but many of my posts is exactly that: educating users. But it's rewarding in the sense that in the end, everybody leaves smarter than they were before. :) > > In the hopes that it might reduce the amount of bugs our users run into > > when using Debian unstable, we have apt-listbugs installed by default. > Have you considered Debian testing as a compromise between the latest > software versions of Debian unstable and the, well, stability of Debian > stable? Having apt-listbugs installed by default could still be a good idea, > but Debian testing is a bit less adventurous than Debian unstable, at least > in my experience... Yes, that is correct. The company MNT prefers unstable because it often happened that important packages like mesa were stuck in unstable and prevented from transitioning to testing because of some unrelated other issue. I talked to them about using testing but when we tried it out, we ran into exactly this issue. I keep telling myself that somebody has to run unstable or otherwise nobody will find the RC bugs. XD But, this topic is unrelated to this bugreport. Even if we were to switch to testing, I would keep apt-listbugs in the default installation because testing also has RC bugs. > > The problem which I frequently encounter is, that our users see the list > > above and then have no way of knowing what to do with this information > > because they don't know how to connect the bug number with the > > corresponding webpage of the Debian BTS. > > It could still be not enough for your needs, but: have you considered > to suggest the use of the apt-listbugs interactive prompt? I know of it but below you say "I understand the meaning, because I already know" and the same applies here. When new users see this prompt: Are you sure you want to install/upgrade the above packages? [Y/n/?/...] Then they do not think "wonderful, I can type a question mark which will probably give me some help output -- lets do that!" I cannot remember a single instance where somebody asked anything about the interactive prompt. Instead I get questions like: "when it says Yn what does this mean?" and you and I know that it means that "if you hit enter it will select the option written in upper-case". This is part of the TUI interface that we are used to but it's not so obvious for newcomers. But you are right, I should be promoting the interactive interface more, so here we go: https://community.mnt.re/t/psa-apt-listbugs-can-open-bug-reports-in-your-browser/4509 > Another possibility is to reply with `c` and this will create the > temporary HTML page and show its local URI so that it can be > copy-pasted to a browser location bar. Thank you! I have not tried out "c" before. :) > > What do you think? > > Your first idea implies a bit of repetition, but it could be not that > bad. > Your second idea also has its merits, even though the phrasing should > be made clearer (it's a little cryptic, as it is: I understand the > meaning, because I already know, but what about a non-tech-savvy > user?). > > I have to think about these ideas. Maybe there's a third possibility > which is better... > > > > > Thanks! > > You're welcome. > Please let me know whether you have considered using the apt-listbugs > interactive prompt. > > Looking forward to hearing back from you. I will leave the decision of what to do about this bug up to you. Feel free to close this bug as wontfix if you think that it's too verbose or too much clutter and don't find a solution that you are comfortable with. I just wanted to bring this up and now you can decide what to do with this information. :D Thank you for maintaining apt-listbugs! cheers, josch
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