Feature Req: Improve readability, use 2 spaces between package names

[Joshua McKinney]

Just now I noticed the output of a archlinux system update (pacman -Syu) uses 2 spaces between package names.
I found this significantly easier to read.

Packages (37): archlinux-keyring-20130818-1 bash-4.2.045-5 btrfs-progs-0.20rc1.2-2 cryptsetup-1.6.2-1 curl-7.32.0-2 dbus-1.6.14-1 device-mapper-2.02.100-1 ... <snip>

On my ubuntu system, having the package names only have 1 space between can make it more difficult to notice updates that I should pay particular attention to rather than just accepting an moving on.

[Joshua McKinney (joshka-launchpad)]

Note: spaces have been chopped by bug tracker.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1228868/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Joshua McKinney (joshka-launchpad)]

Not sure which package to associate this with (apt / aptitude). I also realise that this has upstream consequences on debian.

It seems like a small usability change, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that this is a 1 line code fix, but it makes a big enough difference to the readability of the package list that I felt I must share. I'd be most concerned about whether there are tools, scripts, etc. that read the output of these commands (apt / aptitude) that would break on 2 spaces.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Changing it for everyone less so as it may break scripts that parse the apt-get output.

[Daniel Hartwig (wigs)]

This option will not be added in aptitude.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

I normally run apt-get with -V on upgrades which gives me one *line* per package. That's even more readable than 2 spaces.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

I'm marking this as opinion. We already provide -V which outputs one package per line, so we do not really need the 2 spaces outputting.