[arch-general] Suppressing specific pacman warnings

[João Miguel]

A 2017-04-02T02:02:30 -0400, Eli Schwartz via arch-general escreveu:
> On 04/01/2017 11:14 AM, João Miguel via arch-general wrote:
> > First of all, why is this a warning? What is the problem of me having a
> > newer version of a package than the repository? --quiet does not help. I
> > could do
> 
> Why would a mismatch between what is expected and what is actually
> there, *not* be something to warn the user about?
I mean, why is it unexpected? Is it at all unexpected that a package I
ignored is being ignored? (see below for newer versions)

> > (...)
> > warnings like this. Could they at least be less verbose? Say, in one line:
> > 
> > warning: ignoring (42) package updates (for nvidia, nvidia-dkms,
> > haskell-src-exts, ...)
> 
> This would result in some extremely long lines, but I am not really sure
> why you have 42 packages ignored anyway. So I am not entirely sure how
> much this would help your case.
42 was an example, I don't have anywhere near that number of packages
ignored. The actual number in my case varies between 0 and 15 (currently
3).

> > I found this old bug report (https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/31594)
> > regarding this, but there's no decision about it.
Note: if this is really not worth anyone's time, this should be closed
as WONTFIX.
> > 
> > I'd like there to be an option to quiet these, possibly in pacman.conf:
> > 
> > QuietWarning = NewerThanRepo | IgnoredUpdate | ...
> > (...)
> 
> If pacman is going to output such messages in the first place, offering
> to ignore them strikes me as unwise.
> 
> The whole reason for outputting such messages to begin with, IMHO, is to
> alert the user that something unexpected (packages from the future) is
But when would there be packages from the future!? I think if pacman
finds I have a more recent version than the repos do, the obvious reason
is that I got it from somewhere else. When would I have a higher version
except for that reason?
> going on, or they are performing a risky action (ignoring packages).
I know it is unsupported, but I don't need to be told that it is risky
every time in such a verbose manner.

> It is hardly a huge burden to see them, since after all you are looking
> at the output of an interactive program which already emits lots of
> other information you are expected to read, some of which is
> interspersed with stuff you don't really have to pay attention to
> (progress bars).
> In short, important information is important, and should be seen...
What I'm disputing here is precisely that information being important.
Progress bars are important sometimes, and can be disabled with
--noprogressbar. I'd say that option is less important (and is already
implicit with, say, piping).

> ...
> 
> Though, personally, if I fork a repo package I add it to my [custom]
> repo which has priority. So I never see the state of the official repos.
Thank you, that does sound like a nice idea! (to anyone interested,
found some information here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Tips_and_tricks#Custom_local_repository)
João Miguel