Here is a list of APT improvements that I can think of... I just upgraded to Hamm from a CD, and then installed apt and did the usual 'apt-get update; apt-get upgrade -y' and came up with a few improvements. Note that the updating was done with a diald controlled ppp connection over a 28.8 modem.
Apt definitely looks great, though!!! I just got 0.1.6 last night. Thanks, Nils. - on an upgrade, allow the packages to be downloaded and immediately installed. This saves space, and if you're installing over a modem and need to switch archives and do an 'update' you don't need to do a clean and start downloading all over again. Maybe 3 options: The current one (get all, install all), section by section (get all in main for example, then install), and individual (download one package, then install it, then get the next). - for the HTTP method, it keeps timing out for me. Can you automatically get it to retry? When I ctrl-c the upgrade, and then rerun it, the transfer starts at normal speeds again. an automatic option to retry on a timeout (--retry 3 for 3 retries before it gives up, --timeout 45 for a 45 second timeout ?) would be really handy for ppp-ers. - any chance of allowing multiple archives for the same thing? Say you can get main off two sites... if it times out/can't connect to one, it goes to the second? This may already be there... I haven't tested that yet. - allow for a --max-transfers # to be able to set it to transfer only one file at a time... handy for modem upgrades. - allow for some form of --cont-on-error... I tried to install mime-support (upgrade, actually) and it failed because of an a2ps conflict. It then exited and didn't configure the remaining upgraded packages it had downloaded. I ran dpkg --pending --configure manually and that worked fine.
