Bug#1117685: apt: consider running apt-listchanges after finishing package upgrades

Xiyue Deng <[email protected]> Thu, 09 Oct 2025 10:57:35 -0700

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.apt.devel
Message-ID	<87ldlkrm9c.fsf__46332.0449971192$1760032765$gmane$org@debian-hx90.lan>

Package: apt
Version: 3.0.3
Severity: wishlist

Dear Maintainer,

When running `apt upgrade', `apt-listchanges' is run after packages are
downloaded and before they are actually upgraded.  The downloading phase
can be quite long, especially when upgrading from one major Debian
version to the next and I may attend to other things during that time,
and when I come back, I found the upgrade was stuck in displaying the
news from packages by `apt-listchanges', and after quitting, I'll have
to wait another long time until the upgrades finish.

As `apt-listchanges' just displays the news from packages, and does not
offer a way to stop or postpone package upgrades, I wonder whether it
would be possible to run it after packages are upgraded, so that people
like me won't be surprised that we'll have to wait for another long
time.  I know there are unattended upgrade options, but for upgrading
from one major version to the next, it would be better to monitor the
process somehow which would benefit more from this since the process can
be quite long.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 13.1
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable-debug'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.12.48+deb13-amd64 (SMP w/16 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  adduser                 3.152
ii  base-passwd             3.6.7
ii  debian-archive-keyring  2025.1
ii  libapt-pkg7.0           3.0.3
ii  libc6                   2.41-12
ii  libgcc-s1               14.2.0-19
ii  libseccomp2             2.6.0-2
ii  libssl3t64              3.5.1-1+deb13u1
ii  libstdc++6              14.2.0-19
ii  libsystemd0             257.8-1~deb13u2
ii  sqv                     1.3.0-3

Versions of packages apt recommends:
ii  ca-certificates  20250419

Versions of packages apt suggests:
pn  apt-doc         <none>
ii  aptitude        0.8.13-7
ii  dpkg-dev        1.22.21
ii  gnupg           2.4.7-21
pn  powermgmt-base  <none>
ii  synaptic        0.91.7

-- no debconf information

-- 
Regards,
Xiyue Deng

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