Fails to start with disabled package caches

Bug #596898 reported by Martin Pitt
20
This bug affects 4 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
synaptic (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: synaptic

As described in "man apt.conf", I disabled apt's package caches to save some disk space (see [1]).

Most programs get along with that just fine, but it seems that synaptic uses apt's cache files (which really ought to be an internal implementation detail) directly. If they aren't present, synaptic fails to start with

E: Could not open file - open (2: No such file or directory)
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.

This is due to RPackageCache::open() trying to open the cache without a fallback. Is there a principal reason why it can't just use the standard libapt-pkg structures?

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReducingDiskFootprint#Disable%20apt%20caches

Martin Pitt (pitti)
Changed in synaptic (Ubuntu):
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Low
Martin Pitt (pitti)
Changed in hedley:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Medium
Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote :

In Hedley I re-enabled the pkgcache for now. This will add back 13 MB, but will make synaptic and update-manager work for the time being. Keeping open as a wishlist bug for further investigation when we are pressed on space.

Changed in hedley:
importance: Medium → Wishlist
Joshua R. Poulson (jrp)
Changed in hedley:
importance: Wishlist → Low
Changed in hedley:
assignee: nobody → Debbie Beliveau (debbie-beliveau)
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