Introduction

Aptitude has an option that can be enabled by passing it the option -o Aptitude::Parse-Description-Bullets=true. If you set it, then aptitude will try to detect if a package description contains lists, such as:

 The module-assistant tool helps users and maintainers with managing
 external kernel modules packaged for Debian. It can do:
 .
  - automated preparation of build environment for modules compilation
    (eg. automatical detection and installation of required kernel
    source/headers)
  - automated module source downloads
  - configuring and keeping track of external and localy built modules
    packages
  - semi-automated multiple builds for multiple kernel versions
 .
 It also contains some framework to be used by the build-scripts in the
 accompanying modules-source packages in Debian.

and try to render them nicely, by:

thus, if you have a wide terminal, then you will see something like this in aptitude with the option enabled. (In order to see how the text is rendered you'll need to enlarge your browser window until the next line is rendered in one line only:)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The module-assistant tool helps users and maintainers with managing external kernel modules packaged
for Debian. It can do:

* automated preparation of build environment for modules compilation (eg. automatical detection and
  installation of required kernel source/headers)
* automated module source downloads
* configuring and keeping track of external and localy built modules packages
* semi-automated multiple builds for multiple kernel versions

It also contains some framework to be used by the build-scripts in the accompanying modules-source
packages in Debian.

if the feature is not enabled then you'd see the following:

The module-assistant tool helps users and maintainers with managing external kernel modules packaged
for Debian. It can do:

- automated preparation of build environment for modules compilation
  (eg. automatical detection and installation of required kernel
  source/headers)
- automated module source downloads
- configuring and keeping track of external and localy built modules
  packages
- semi-automated multiple builds for multiple kernel versions

It also contains some framework to be used by the build-scripts in the accompanying modules-source
packages in Debian.

or (in the case of a differen package):

Contains the following scripts, dependencies/recommendations shown in brackets afterwards:
- annotate-output: run a command and prepend time and stream (O for stdout,
    E for stderr) for every line of output
- archpath: print tla/Bazaar package names [tla | bazaar]
- bts: a command-line tool for manipulating the BTS [www-browser,
    libwww-perl, mailx | mailutils]
- checkbashisms: check whether a /bin/sh script contains any common
    bash-specific contructs
- cvs-debi, cvs-debc: to call debi and debc from the CVS working directory
    after running cvs-debuild or cvs-buildpackage [cvs-buildpackage]
- cvs-debrelease: to call debrelease from the CVS working directory
    after running cvs-debuild or cvs-buildpackage [cvs-buildpackage,

Problem

Since the nice formating could also be problematic (see [http://bugs.debian.org/373888 bug #373888]) it's now off by default, thus most people will not be able to enjoy it (see [http://bugs.debian.org/388594 bug #388594]).

Proposed Solution

One solution is to fix the package-descriptions that get missrendered.

This author has traversed the first 200 packages in 7 minutes (the sections admin, comm and devel) that are installed on his system, and has found that among those:

Thus it should be possible to traverse all packages and fix their description, so that all render well. Once a majority of packages is converted, the list formating can be promoted into the Debian Policy ([http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00531.html Daniel Burrows' proposal]).

To speed up the hunting and fixing a lintian/linda check issuing a warning could be created, so that people can start fixing those when they run it, or by running it against the whole archive.

Status

Thus:

Sections analyzed:

Packages containing lists, that render fine:

Packages which need a patch to their description to render fine:

Package

patch sent (bug number)

patch accepted

adduser

[http://bugs.debian.org/388853 #388853]

Y

ax25mail-utils

[http://bugs.debian.org/389049 #389049]

cvsutils

debmake

[http://bugs.debian.org/388854 #388854]

drgeo

[http://bugs.debian.org/389137 #389137]

devscripts

[http://bugs.debian.org/388856 #388856]

Y

fbb

[http://bugs.debian.org/389050 #389050]

gnumeric

[http://bugs.debian.org/389140 #389140]

libslang2-dev

[http://bugs.debian.org/388858 #388858]

linpsk

[http://bugs.debian.org/389051 #389051]

plplot-bin

[http://bugs.debian.org/389142 #389142]

Y

r-cran-misc3d

r-noncran-lindsey

vbpp

[http://bugs.debian.org/389133 #389133]

Y

xcall

[http://bugs.debian.org/389052 #389052]