redownloads package lists unnecessarily

[Michael Hipp]

Binary package hint: debian-installer

I'm attempting to install Intrepid i386 server alpha5 downloaded from here:

  http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/intrepid/alpha-5/intrepid-server-i386.iso

As the installer is running thru the 'Select and install software' phase, it hangs at

  '85% Running post-installation trigger python-support'

It's been sitting there for probably 45 minutes. The F4 console shows a bunch of DHCP messages and what appbear to be attempts to connect to 'us.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid' repositories.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

To help me reproduce this problem: what task options did you choose? Could you attach /var/log/syslog from the running installation? (You can extract it by running 'anna-install openssh-client-udeb' and then using scp to copy it to another machine, assuming you have one.)

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I think this may be partly a misleading progress message. While I haven't reproduced an actual hang, the installer did take a while to get past that particular step for me; however, what it was *actually* doing was downloading package lists from the network. (I wonder why? It shouldn't need to.)

[Michael Hipp (michael-hipp)]

Yes. After 2+ hours the installation took off and completed normally. So it was apparently downloading. Note that it appeared to be very thoroughly stuck with no discernible disk activity or even network activity. So I think this should be re-titled as a misleading progress indicator, as Colin said.

[mjwitter (mjwitter)]

Not sure if it is related, but both my pc's(an HP laptop and a desktop) both download the package lists completely every time i try to update after turning on either of the computers.

Is this normal during Alpha, or should it just be updating the lists rather than re-downloading the entire thing?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

mjwitter: That's normal (our archive doesn't support any kind of delta-updating of package lists yet), and is also rather different from the topic of this bug.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Note to self: the rune to get apt to refresh its cache of its package lists without actually redownloading them is 'apt-get --no-download update'.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package pkgsel - 0.20ubuntu8

---------------
pkgsel (0.20ubuntu8) intrepid; urgency=low

  * Don't download package lists again after moving the final sources.list
    into place (LP: #267884).

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:55:49 +0100

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package apt-setup - 1:0.37ubuntu5

---------------
apt-setup (1:0.37ubuntu5) intrepid; urgency=low

  * Fix description of universe in generated sources.list: packages there
    are expected to be under a free licence.
  * Run 'apt-get update', without downloading package lists or cleaning up
    old files, after moving the sources.list generated during base system
    installation back into place (LP: #267884).

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:53:36 +0100