Package: apt Version: 0.5.9 Severity: wishlist File: /usr/bin/apt-get There seems no point of not allowing non root users to be able to use --download-only or --simulate.
At most warn if it is found that root is also using it at the moment if found so, and/or warn that we are in Read-only mode and root might change things while we are running. E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13 Permission denied) E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root? Could it be that dpkg's --no-act is not given to dpkg upon --simulate, if indeed proper? Indeed with the proper PATH, a non-root user can successfully use dpkg: PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin dpkg --no-act -P netbase dpkg: dependency problems prevent removal of netbase: lftp depends on netbase... Remember to put --no-act as the first dpkg option... In fact one would now have an extra layer of protection with --simulate: as non-root one is doubly confident of not messing up the system. Indeed, perhaps do an audit to see if there's any more functions that can be opened up to non-root users. At present many are already open, but more could be.
