[Bug 1433077] Re: do-release-upgrade shouldn't switch to terminal's alternate screen

[Egmont Koblinger]

I just realized that this happens because it's automatically run inside
"script". Kinda makes sense then, but I guess you should somehow notify
the user about it. And screen's scrollback possibilities are quite
limited and hard to use. I'd personally prefer to run this script
outside of screen, and have the terminal's convenient scrollbar.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1433077

Title:
  do-release-upgrade shouldn't switch to terminal's alternate screen

Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  On Utopic, I just issued this command to upgrade to Vivid beta:

  $ sudo do-release-upgrade -d

  After just a couple of lines of output, namely:

  Checking for a new Ubuntu release
  Get:1 Upgrade tool signature [198 B]                                                                                                                     
  Get:2 Upgrade tool [1,209 kB]                                                                                                                            
  Fetched 1,210 kB in 0s (0 B/s)                                                                                                                           
  authenticate 'vivid.tar.gz' against 'vivid.tar.gz.gpg' 
  extracting 'vivid.tar.gz'

  it switched to the terminal's so-called "alternate screen" (escape
  sequence: \e[?47h or \e[?1047h or \e[?1049h). This is the one that
  fullscreen apps, e.g. vim, less, mc etc. use, and does not have a
  scrollback buffer.

  For a process that is about to print thousands of lines and is not a
  fullscreen app, it's a very bad idea to switch to this alternate
  screen, because I lose the ability to walk back in the scrollback to
  see what's happened or if there was an error.

  Please make sure that the script stays on the default "normal screen"
  of the terminal, so that the scrollbar can be used for its purpose.

  (I'm using gnome-terminal, but it should be irrelevant.)

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
  Package: ubuntu-release-upgrader-core 1:14.10.10
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-31.43-generic 3.16.7-ckt5
  Uname: Linux 3.16.0-31-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu8.2
  Architecture: amd64
  CrashDB: ubuntu
  CurrentDesktop: Unity
  Date: Tue Mar 17 14:09:43 2015
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-05-30 (1020 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
  PackageArchitecture: all
  SourcePackage: ubuntu-release-upgrader
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to utopic on 2015-03-17 (0 days ago)

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