misleading text when using --download-only with apt-get

[Chris Moore]

I added a 3rd party repository to sources.list and tried to download gaim 2.0 from it. I specified --download-only so that the packages would be downloaded but not installed.

Before starting the download, apt-get asks:

    WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
      gaim-guifications gaim gaim-data
    Install these packages without verification [y/N]?

I don't want them installed - I already specified --download-only, so I answer no to this "install these packages?" question, at which point apt-get aborts without even downloading the packages, with this message:

    E: Some packages could not be authenticated

I would suggest that the wording of the question should be changed to "Download these packages without verification [y/N]?" in the case that -d or --download-only has been specified.

Here's a complete log:

$ sudo apt-get --download-only install gaim
Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree... Done

The following extra packages will be installed:
  gaim-data gaim-guifications libsilc-1.0-2
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libsilc-1.0-2
The following packages will be upgraded:
  gaim gaim-data gaim-guifications
3 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 5493kB/5896kB of archives.
After unpacking 3073kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
  gaim-guifications gaim gaim-data
Install these packages without verification [y/N]? n
E: Some packages could not be authenticated
$

[Francois-Denis Gonthier (fdgonthier)]

I say I must agree.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Well, download only is like a simulation, except that it really does the downloading part. We can't change all the messages just because you think that APT suddenly does something different than you told it to do.

[ThorX89 (thorx89)]

THis is not limited to unverified packages.

A couple of minutes ago, I did "apt-get --download-only" and my command asked for quite a lot of packages, which I did NOT want istalled, just downloaded.

This message made me very unsure about whether apt-get has a bug that will cause the packages to be actually installed.

I hade to give it a test run on a single package just to be sure.

I'd say this message did bug me quite a lot. Programs should not be saying they're about to do X when in fact they're about to do Y. It'd be better if they didn't say anything at all.

I don't get why this is even considered as "not a bug." I believe there's almost universal agreement that if programs say they are about to do something, then they will indeed what they say they will. Exempt from this is malware.