[Bug 1988819] Re: When apt keeps back packages due to phased updates, it should list them separately

[Geekley]

In the proposed fix, will there be some sort of flag and/or
configuration for apt and apt-get to let me NOT see this list of
"deferred due to phasing" packages? I agree it's important to list them
for users who want to see it, but it's also important to not bloat the
output with a bunch of extra info most users should not (or won't want
to) worry about. Often this list of packages is quite long and
distracting.

There should be something like APT::Get::Show-Deferred = --show-deferred
and --no-show-deferred.

IMHO, not listing should be the default. I think most users would not need such verbosity, and by default you could simply show a message like "Some updates are deferred for you due to phasing" if this list would have been non-empty.
When users see this message, they can always use --show-deferred if they need the list; this would change the message to "The following updates are deferred for you due to phasing:" (list of packages).
If they use --no-show-deferred, then not even this message would appear.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1988819

Title:
  When apt keeps back packages due to phased updates, it should list
  them separately

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  After phased updates have been introduced, it may happen that apt
  upgrade shows packages as upgradable but ends up not upgrading them.
  In this case the packages are indicated as being "kept back".

  Unfortunately, the feedback provided about this to the user is not
  very informative. The user sees the packages being kept back and
  thinks something is going wrong on the system.

  When packages are kept back because of phased updates, apt should say
  so e.g., it should say that the upgrade is delayed.

  Incidentally note that aptitude does not respect phased updates.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
  Package: apt 2.4.7
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.15.0-47.51-generic 5.15.46
  Uname: Linux 5.15.0-47-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.1
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
  CurrentDesktop: KDE
  Date: Tue Sep  6 10:05:14 2022
  EcryptfsInUse: Yes
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-02-16 (933 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017)
  SourcePackage: apt
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to jammy on 2022-06-03 (94 days ago)

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