Version 4.2 of apt-listchanges is now available in experimental. Please
test.
Three important notes:
1) There was a bug in 4.1 that caused corruption in the database of
previously seen changelog entries (sorry!). The bug has been fixed, but
the corruption was too complex to be recoverable, so 4.2 erases the
database and starts from scratch. It will work just fine, but if you
want to speed up future updates you can run "systemctl start
apt-listchanges.timer" after upgrading to 4.2 to force it to rebuild the
database from installed packages in the background. Make sure to keep
your computer running for a couple hours, though if you do need to
reboot you can just start it again afterward since it's idempotent.
2) I want to give a shout-out to Alexandre Detiste for his help starting
to add typing hints to the apt-listchanges code-base, which is how the
aforementioned bug was found.
3) To facilitate easier future debugging of issues like the one that was
introduce in 4.1, 4.2 introduces a new snapshot feature which is only
live in experimental builds. Each time apt-listchanges runs it captures
a snapshot of a few data files (e.g., its database at the beginning and
end of the run, /var/lib/dpkg/status, the news and changelog entries
that were displayed to the user, the list of debs that were parsed for
changelog entries). Up to the last 7 snapshots are saved. If you end up
running into an issue I may ask you to send me the relevant snapshots to
help me troubleshoot. If you prefer you can disable the snapshots by
setting capture_snapshots to false in /etc/apt/listchanges.conf.
However, if you leave it set to "auto", which is the value it will get
by default, then it will automatically be removed from the config file
and the old snapshots purged when you upgrade to a non-experimental
version of apt-listchanges.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns or run into any
issues.
Thanks!
jik