1) It can be either the user's fault or accidental. A power outage during installation of software can lead to improper configuration and will bring down the entire apt system. The remedy for that situation can usually be resoved via 'sudo apt-get -f install' or 'sudo dpkg reconfigure'. Synaptic also has the ability to fix broken packages.
I believe that the other big case would be broken dependencies which is most always a fault of the user installing a foreign application forcefully. So, we have (including but not limited to): Accident-induced: a)Power Outage b)Program crash (apt crash) c)System freeze/shutdown (kernel panic, X freeze, computer overheating) User induced: a)Forcing unacceptable packages via commandline b)Control-C-ing in the middle of commandline install As far as an automated fix dealing with a badly coded package (which seems very unlikely), apt has proven to me that it handles culprits quite admirably. 2) Doing anything apt-related before fixing the problem is impossible via GUI programs like gnome-app-install and software-center. It would not make sense to me to allow people to browse software if apt is not in working condition as it is absolutely useless unless fixed. On the flip side, however, there doesn't seem to be any reason why people can't at least browse: apt-cache search will still work if the database is broken and synaptic will still search. The former will be more intrusive and system-serious while the latter comes off as a casual error like Firefox unable to load a webpage. It is something that absolutely *must* be fixed first. 3) From personal experience, using either of those two commands work 99 percent of the time. In the case of broken dependencies, the offending packages (but not libraries generally) will be removed (or upgraded to the correct version if possible). Anything more serious that cannot be fixed by the big two commands have been because of very manual attempts at forcing things that should not be forced. If one of the two does not work, the other will. 4) Again, personal experience, repair takes from within 10 seconds to only a minute depending on the package size. It's very quick. 5) Since I would argue that most of the cases of something being broken is an interruption in the process, I would say that it would mostly involve installing/configuring the packages that it left off as. In the case of broken dependencies, the offending packages would be removed. Once again, personal experience, I cannot recall any instance where I needed internet to download packages for fixing apt so it seems unnecessary. Hope this helps. I'd be happy to offer more input if necessary. -- Can't fix broken packages from within USC https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/442262 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
