ia32-archive causes repository reload to take long time

[Peter "NCG"]

Upon any refresh of the repositories, in Synaptic, Software Sources or apt-get ia32-archive causes the reloading to take a long time. The output is incomplete due to my not waiting the entire time, but here's the sample I collected after what was already an extended period. This is using 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" x64. What should happen is the update of the repositories, however, instead it takes a long time with the following output:

eter@Z-Two-Air:~$ sudo apt-get update
apt-get: update
Get: http://ftp.debian.org sid/main Sources
Get: http://ftp.debian.org sid/contrib Sources
Get: http://ftp.debian.org sid/non-free Sources
Convert: acl 2.2.47-3
Convert: alsa-lib 1.0.20-3
Convert: arts 1.5.9-3
Convert: atk1.0 1.26.0-1
Convert: at-spi 1.26.0-1
Convert: attr 1:2.4.43-3
Error: Binary / source version mismatch, skipping.
Convert: audiofile 0.2.6-7
Convert: cairo 1.8.8-2
Convert: cdparanoia 3.10.2+debian-6
Convert: cyrus-sasl2 2.1.23.dfsg1-1
Convert: db 4.7.25-7

[Ademar Arvati Filho (arvati)]

I have the same problem !

[lordawesome (freeshit)]

Mine is doing the same as well. I even disabled all my repositories and tried again. It still does it.

[Poppafuze (poppafuze)]

This appears to be caused by the package configuration spending time hitting sid from debian.org, and converting all the packages on its list. This is exacerbated by the fact that sid packages change very frequently.

Specifically, /usr/lib/ia32-archive/bin/apt-update has the following items hard-wired, instead of being written as its own FIXME suggests:
...
# FIXME: use /etc/ia32-libs/sources.list
PACKAGES="$HOMEDIR/dists/sid/*/binary-*/Packages"
URL="http://ftp.debian.org"
REMOTE_DIR="debian"
DIST="sid"
SUITES="main contrib non-free"
SRC_FILTER="$HOMEDIR/conf/sources.filter"
PKG_FILTER="/usr/lib/ia32-libs-tools/packages.list"
LOGDIR="$HOMEDIR/logs"
...

I'd like to suggest (most of) this launchpad bug is not an upstream issue, but one where the Ubuntu package maintainer should/would apply diffs for:
1. Ubuntu.com repos instead of debian.org
2. The Ubuntu dist instead of sid (the increased stability here will save much time)
3. Maintain any changes to the suggested packages listed in sources.filter as needed by Ubuntu
4. Maintain any changes to the suggested packages listed in packages.list as needed by Ubuntu

The notion of where these diffs should be applied, however, can be done by upstream (i.e. writing their FIXME), so that the diffs all exist in the "/etc/ia32-libs/sources.list" instead of "/usr/lib/ia32-archive/bin/apt-update" (i.e. a config file instead of a script).

Also, a dialog warning at preinst could be created, whereby users are warned that the build time is longest at the first install, and asking them if they really want to be using this package if it's going to hang up apt-get update.

[Poppafuze (poppafuze)]

Marked 396205 as a dup of this bug, as the "offending" file is owned by this package.

[Poppafuze (poppafuze)]

Also may want to suggest to upstream that the rules in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00ia32-archive be changed so that:

1. The Update rule generates a list of what needs to be converted.
2. The Upgrade rule actually performs the conversion.

Currently, the update action performs the conversion, which seems to be more logically done during an upgrade.

[catphive (catphive)]

This bug effectively makes apt-get unusable. Is anyone working on it? Will it at least be fixed in Ubuntu 9.10? It doesn't look like it's even been triaged yet to me...

[Chris Jones (cmsj)]

This package appears to only be in Jaunty, so it seems unlikely that it would be fixed in Karmic, but it talking to debian repositories seems deeply incorrect!

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Please be aware that this package has been removed (and deleted) from Debian [1] (upstream for it); Debian considers 'multiarch' as the eventual replacement. is32-libs-tools made it into Jaunty (from Debian unstable), but not Karmic (since it was removed upstream).

Additionally, the Debian maintainer orphaned it.

In other words: this package has no maintainer, here or at upstream. The last upstream release suggests some of the problems in this bug would have been addressed, but I have been unable to find the source packages anywhere.

As such, marking confirmed *WISHLIST*. Anyone can suggest fixes.

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2009/07/msg00015.html