On Mon, 09 May 2011, Ciaran Carthy wrote: > quickly rebuilds it to its full size. Does it rebuild it by trawling > through the repository again?
AFAIK yes. > What is it used for/what does it contain? It would seem to be > redundant based on what the next two files are used for. It's the list of available packages known to APT. > In the /var/lib/dpkg directory there are two important files: > *available *and *status*. [...] > This seems to be the definitive source for determining that a > package is installed. Yes. > What is "available" for and how is it built up? > My understanding is that dpkg does not have the concept of a > configured remote repository. > So in the world of dpkg, what does it mean to say that a package is > "available"? The available file is mainly useful for dselect. It's maintained by dpkg but fed by external programs/scripts via "dpkg --update-avail" (and/or --merge-avail). For historical reasons, it also keeps the information of packages that have been installed in the past (dpkg -i adds the info both to the available file and to the status file). This file is not used by APT. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer Follow my Debian News ▶ http://RaphaelHertzog.com (English) ▶ http://RaphaelHertzog.fr (Français) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
