[clue-tech] apt-get --download

[David L. Anselmi]

Jason S. Friedman wrote:
[...]
>> There seems to be a difference between "--download" and 
>> "--download-only", as odd as that sounds.  I'll keep experimenting.

Ah, yes of course.  And the man page is clear on that if you pay attention.

Look at the entries in apt-get(8) for --download-only and --no-download. 
  The config items are APT::Get::Download-Only and APT::Get::Download, 
two different items.  Then --download is just the opposite of 
--no-download (see the intro to OPTIONS).

So given the entry for "-d, --download-only", why did you think you 
could substitute --download for --download-only?  (Obviously when you 
originally posted I didn't look at the man page closely to see what you 
were doing wrong.)  If you can't answer that reasonably you won't get 
far with a bug report.

> How does one file a bug against apt-get?

See the BUGS section of apt-get(8).  NOTES also lists the bug page, you 
should read through some of those to see how they work.  reportbug(1) is 
probably the easiest way to do it.

In this case I'm not sure you'll have much luck with a bug unless you 
can suggest a clean change that makes the man page more clear (just 
adding "don't confuse these two" might not get you there).  But it might 
be worth filing anyway.  If a lot of other people have the problem they 
can join in (or maybe it's already a bug you can join in).

Dave