Bug#1104283: dselect: introduce deb822 and sources.list.d awareness to Access method configuration

Package: dselect
Version: 1.22.18
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected]

On a fresh install to hurd-i386, dselect seemingly is blissfully unaware of files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d, so I pressed A to configure the access method. This made dselect create a new /etc/apt/sources.list pointing to Stable and following the old lists format:

----------
$ sudo dselect 

Can't exec "setterm": Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 28.
Can't exec "setterm": Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 29.
Use of uninitialized value $boldon in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 222.
Use of uninitialized value $boldoff in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 222.
         Set up a list of distribution source locations  

 Please give the base URL of the debian distribution.
Use of uninitialized value $boldon in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 226.
Use of uninitialized value $boldoff in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 227.
 The access schemes I know about are: http ftp file

 For example:
              file:/mnt/debian,
              ftp://ftp.example.org/debian,
              http://deb.debian.org/debian,


Use of uninitialized value $boldon in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 133.
Use of uninitialized value $boldoff in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 133.
 URL [http://deb.debian.org/debian]: 

 Please give the distribution tag to get or a path to the
 package file ending in a /. The distribution
Use of uninitialized value $boldon in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 162, <STDIN> line 1.
 tags are typically something like: Use of uninitialized value $boldoff in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 163, <STDIN> line 1.
stable unstable testing

Use of uninitialized value $boldon in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 165, <STDIN> line 1.
Use of uninitialized value $boldoff in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 165, <STDIN> line 1.
 Distribution [stable]: 

 Please give the components to get
Use of uninitialized value $boldon in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 196, <STDIN> line 2.
 The components are typically something like: Use of uninitialized value $boldoff in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 197, <STDIN> line 2.
main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

Use of uninitialized value $boldon in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 199, <STDIN> line 2.
Use of uninitialized value $boldoff in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 199, <STDIN> line 2.
 Components [main contrib non-free non-free-firmware]: 

Use of uninitialized value $boldon in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 249, <STDIN> line 3.
Use of uninitialized value $boldoff in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/lib/dpkg/methods/apt/setup line 249, <STDIN> line 3.
 Would you like to add another source?[y/N] 

Löytyi:1 http://repos.internal/debian unstable InRelease
Nouda:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable InRelease [151 kB]
Löytyi:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian-ports unreleased InRelease
Löytyi:4 http://deb.debian.org/debian-ports unstable InRelease
Löytyi:5 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable InRelease
Nouda:6 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/main Translation-en [6 109 kB]
Nouda:7 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/main Translation-fi [70,0 kB]
Nouda:8 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/main all Contents (deb) [33,9 MB]
Nouda:9 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/contrib Translation-en [48,8 kB]                                                                                                           
Nouda:10 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/contrib all Contents (deb) [98,6 kB]                                                                                                      
Nouda:11 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/non-free Translation-en [67,0 kB]                                                                                                         
Nouda:12 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/non-free all Contents (deb) [839 kB]                                                                                                      
Nouda:13 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/non-free-firmware Translation-en [20,9 kB]                                                                                                
Nouda:14 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/non-free-firmware all Contents (deb) [16,9 kB]                                                                                            
Noudettiin 41,3 Mt ajassa 1min 31s (455 kt/s)                                                                                                                                          
Luetaan pakettiluetteloita... Valmis
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'main/binary-hurd-i386/Packages' as repository 'http://deb.debian.org/debian stable InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'hurd-i386'
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'contrib/binary-hurd-i386/Packages' as repository 'http://deb.debian.org/debian stable InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'hurd-i386'
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'non-free/binary-hurd-i386/Packages' as repository 'http://deb.debian.org/debian stable InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'hurd-i386'
N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'non-free-firmware/binary-hurd-i386/Packages' as repository 'http://deb.debian.org/debian stable InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'hurd-i386'
N: Some sources can be modernized. Run 'apt modernize-sources' to do so.
Yhdistetään saatavuustiedot
Replacing available packages info, using /var/cache/apt/available.
Information about 76475 packages was updated.
----------

For the record, what we have even before dselect is first run:

----------
$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources 
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian-ports/
Suites: unreleased
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-ports-archive-keyring.gpg

Types: deb
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian-ports/
Suites: unstable
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-ports-archive-keyring.gpg

Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: unstable
Components: main
Architectures: all
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
----------
$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/funkyware.sources 
Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://repos.internal/debian/
Suites: unstable
Components: main contrib non-free
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/funkyware-archive-unstable.pgp
----------

The setterm errors are probably due to Hurd missing a few packages in its bootstrap. This can be safely ignored for the purpose of this bug report.

The real issue is dselect insisting on creating an old-style sources.list since it seemingly cannot deal with deb822 *.sources by default. It would be a good idea to fix this on time for Trixie.

Thanks!
Martin-Éric

-- System Information:
Debian Release: trixie/sid
  APT prefers unreleased
  APT policy: (995, 'unreleased'), (990, 'unstable')
Architecture: hurd-i386 (i686-AT386)

Kernel: GNU-Mach 1.8+git20250304-up-486/Hurd-0.9
Locale: LANG=fi_FI.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fi_FI.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=fi:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages dselect depends on:
ii  hurd-libs0.3  1:0.9.git20250420-1
ii  libc0.3       2.41-8~1
ii  libmd0        1.1.0-2+b1
ii  libncursesw6  6.5+20250216-2
ii  libtinfo6     6.5+20250216-2

dselect recommends no packages.

Versions of packages dselect suggests:
ii  libdpkg-perl  1.22.18
ii  perl          5.40.1-3

-- no debconf information