Hi,

currently, apt-listbugs output might look like this:

Retrieving bug reports... Done
Parsing Found/Fixed information... Done
grave bugs of context (→ 2025.09.21.20251026+dfsg-1) <Outstanding>
 b1 - #1121307 - lpdf-lmt.lmt:1681: attempt to perform bitwise operation on a nil value (local 'options') serious bugs of ca-certificates-java (→ 20260311) <Outstanding>
 b2 - #1142266 - ca-certificates-java: doesn't refresh /etc/ssl/certs/java/cacerts on upgrade from bookworm serious bugs of inkscape (→ 1.4.3-1+b1) <Outstanding>
 b3 - #1141190 - Non-free license on Hershey fonts serious bugs of texlive-formats-extra (→ 2026.20260711-1) <Outstanding>
 b4 - #1139505 - gitmagic: FTBFS: LaTeX error
   Merged with: 1139514 1139525
Summary:
 ca-certificates-java(1 bug), context(1 bug), inkscape(1 bug), texlive-formats-extra(1 bug)
Are you sure you want to install/upgrade the above packages? [Y/n/?/...]


I'm providing user support for the MNT Reform platform. Since we usually
require packages more recent than what is in Debian stable for the ARM64
systems to work correctly, our users are provided with a Debian unstable
installation. In the hopes that it might reduce the amount of bugs our users
run into when using Debian unstable, we have apt-listbugs installed by default.

The problem which I frequently encounter is, that our users see the list above
and then have no way of knowing what to do with this information because they
don't know how to connect the bug number with the corresponding webpage of the
Debian BTS.

I have two ideas:

Instead of listing the bug number, expand it to a URL the user can click on.
The bug subjects are usually super long anyways (see above) so maybe it would
not be too bad to instead output:

 b1 - https://bugs.debian.org/1121307 - lpdf-lmt.lmt:1681: attempt to perform bitwise operation on a nil value (local 'options') serious bugs of ca-certificates-java (→ 20260311) <Outstanding>
 b2 - https://bugs.debian.org/1142266 - ca-certificates-java: doesn't refresh /etc/ssl/certs/java/cacerts on upgrade from bookworm serious bugs of inkscape (→ 1.4.3-1+b1) <Outstanding>
 b3 - https://bugs.debian.org/1141190 - Non-free license on Hershey fonts serious bugs of texlive-formats-extra (→ 2026.20260711-1) <Outstanding>
 b4 - https://bugs.debian.org/1139505 - gitmagic: FTBFS: LaTeX error

Or, alternatively, add an additional line of text just after the summary saying
something along the lines of:

To obtain more details about the bugs listed above, go to
https://bugs.debian.org/XXXXXXX where you replace XXXXXXX with the numerical
value shown at the beginning of each line above (but without the hash).

What do you think?

Thanks!

cheers, josch

Control: tags -1 + moreinfo

Hello Johannes, nice to read you!    :-)
Thanks for your bug report.

Yes, something like that.
non-tech-savvy users to Debian unstable, unless you are willing to
educate them all!".

And don't get me wrong, educating users is a noble goal in itself, so it
might be worth the hassle... But it sure requires time and effort.

Have you considered Debian testing as a compromise between the latest
software versions of Debian unstable and the, well, stability of Debian
stable?
Having apt-listbugs installed by default could still be a good idea,
but Debian testing is a bit less adventurous than Debian unstable, at
least in my experience...

Anyway.
to suggest the use of the apt-listbugs interactive prompt?

At the above prompt, you may reply with a question mark to see
the available possibilities:

    Are you sure you want to install/upgrade the above packages? [Y/n/?/...] ?
         y     - continue the APT installation.
         n     - stop the APT installation.
       <num>   - query the specified bug number
                 (uses querybts as user REGULAR_USER).
      #<num>   - same as <num>.
       b<id>   - same as <num>, but query the bug identified by <id>.
         r     - redisplay bug lists.
         c     - compose bug lists in HTML.
         w     - display bug lists in HTML
                 (uses sensible-browser as user REGULAR_USER).
     d <num>.. - dodge bugs <num> by pinning affected packages
                 (restart APT session to enable).
     d b<id>.. - dodge bugs identified by <id> by pinning affected packages
                 (restart APT session to enable).
     p <pkg>.. - pin packages <pkg>
                 (restart APT session to enable).
     p         - pin all the above packages
                 (restart APT session to enable).
     i <num>   - mark bug number <num> as ignored.
     i b<id>   - mark the bug identified by <id> as ignored.
     i         - mark all the above bugs as ignored.
         u     - undo all the dodge/pin/ignore operations done so far.
         ?     - print this help.

For instance, you can reply with `1121307` or `#1121307` or `b1` and
this will use `querybts` (from package `reportbug`, if installed) to
display the bug report in a TUI.
Or you can reply with `w` and this will create a temporary HTML page
and display it with `sensible-browser`. The page has the bug lists with
links to http://bugs.debian.org/1121307 and the other bug reports.

The implementation of apt-listbugs even does its best to run `querybts`
and `sensible-browser` as the regular user who became root (with su or
sudo), rather than as root.

Another possibility is to reply with `c` and this will create the
temporary HTML page and show its local URI so that it can be
copy-pasted to a browser location bar.


As I said, all these strategies could be not enough for your needs,
but I thought it was worth mentioning them, just in case...

Your first idea implies a bit of repetition, but it could be not that
bad.
Your second idea also has its merits, even though the phrasing should
be made clearer (it's a little cryptic, as it is: I understand the
meaning, because I already know, but what about a non-tech-savvy
user?).

I have to think about these ideas. Maybe there's a third possibility
which is better...

You're welcome.
Please let me know whether you have considered using the apt-listbugs
interactive prompt.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.
Bye.

Hi Francesco,

Quoting Francesco Poli (2026-07-20 23:23:26)

thank you for replying this quickly!

True. I have over 1.7k posts at https://community.mnt.re not all of which are
user support but many of my posts is exactly that: educating users. But it's
rewarding in the sense that in the end, everybody leaves smarter than they were
before. :)

Yes, that is correct. The company MNT prefers unstable because it often
happened that important packages like mesa were stuck in unstable and prevented
from transitioning to testing because of some unrelated other issue. I talked
to them about using testing but when we tried it out, we ran into exactly this
issue.

I keep telling myself that somebody has to run unstable or otherwise nobody
will find the RC bugs. XD

But, this topic is unrelated to this bugreport. Even if we were to switch to
testing, I would keep apt-listbugs in the default installation because testing
also has RC bugs.

I know of it but below you say "I understand the meaning, because I already
know" and the same applies here. When new users see this prompt:

    Are you sure you want to install/upgrade the above packages? [Y/n/?/...]

Then they do not think "wonderful, I can type a question mark which will
probably give me some help output -- lets do that!"

I cannot remember a single instance where somebody asked anything about the
interactive prompt. Instead I get questions like: "when it says Yn what does
this mean?" and you and I know that it means that "if you hit enter it will
select the option written in upper-case". This is part of the TUI interface
that we are used to but it's not so obvious for newcomers.

But you are right, I should be promoting the interactive interface more, so
here we go:
https://community.mnt.re/t/psa-apt-listbugs-can-open-bug-reports-in-your-browser/4509

Thank you! I have not tried out "c" before. :)

I will leave the decision of what to do about this bug up to you. Feel free to
close this bug as wontfix if you think that it's too verbose or too much
clutter and don't find a solution that you are comfortable with. I just wanted
to bring this up and now you can decide what to do with this information. :D

Thank you for maintaining apt-listbugs!

cheers, josch

On Tue, 21 Jul 2026 01:06:40 +0200 Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues wrote:

[...]
[...]

I think it's somewhat consistent with the prompts that you get when
using `apt` or `aptitude`.
Hence it's part of the TUI interface that newcomers need to get used
to, if they want to use `apt` or `aptitude` from the command-line,
isn't it?

Good, except that with `b1`, `b2`, and so forth you won't see the bug
report opened in your default browser. You will see the bug report
displayed by `querybts` in its TUI.

The way to switch to your browser is to use `w` or `c`.

[...]

Still thinking about it...   ;-)

I am glad that some people find it useful!   :-)

* Francesco Poli <invernomuto@paranoici.org> [260721 15:47]:

Maybe apt-listbugs could emit the URL with the modern escape
sequences, so that it shows the bug number, but when clicked in a
graphical terminal, the browser opens.

Similar to what f.e. `systemctl status /` does for this part:

        Docs: man:fstab(5)
              man:systemd-fstab-generator(8)

(Where you can hover "man:fstab(5)" and on click it would take you
to the fstab man page, provided your terminal supports this and you
have an URL-handler for the man: protocol.)

Best,
Chris

On Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:10:06 -0300 Chris Hofstaedtler wrote:

[...]
[...]

Hello Chris,
nice to read you!    :-)

Thanks for commenting on this bug report: yours looks like an
interesting idea.

Just to check that we are on the same page: I've read the [document]
titled _Hyperlinks (a.k.a. HTML-like anchors) in terminal emulators_
and I am giving package `alacritty` a try (since it is one of the
terminal emulators that support this feature; `xterm` unfortunately
doesn't...).

[document]: <https://gist.github.com/egmontkob/eb114294efbcd5adb1944c9f3cb5feda>

If you confirm that this is the feature you are talking about, I can
experiment a bit with apt-listbugs, to see how it goes...

Please let me know, thanks for your time and helpfulness.

Hello,

Quoting Chris Hofstaedtler (2026-07-22 01:10:06)

wooooooooooaaaaaah!!! Can you imagine this coincidence? :D

Just a minute ago, by sheer luck, my mouse cursor happened to hover over the
[-Wunused-variable] part of GCC compiler output and showed a
https://gcc.gnu.org/... URL in a tooltip. It turns out I can click it to read
documentation about that compiler warning. What magic! And then I remembered
that I had just skimmed through this last message of yours less than a week
ago. This is so cool! I have been doing this whole computer thing for decades
and I learn that this is possible *today*??? XD

Now I have to learn how to make my own software output the correct escape
sequences! Wow!

Thanks!

cheers, josch

* Francesco Poli <invernomuto@paranoici.org> [260727 20:32]:

[..]

Indeed!

Chris

Hello,

Bug #1142460 in apt-listbugs reported by you has been fixed in the
Git repository and is awaiting an upload. You can see the commit
message below and you can check the diff of the fix at:

https://salsa.debian.org/frx-guest/apt-listbugs/-/commit/bb51d0da7a329a5365367522120d19b38c28d954
------------------------------------------------------------------------
add terminal hyperlinks (Closes: #1142460)

This adds escape sequences to turn the entries in the bug lists
displayed by apt-listbugs into hyperlinks to the corresponding
bug logs on the Debian BTS web interface.

See [Hyperlinks (a.k.a. HTML-like anchors) in terminal emulators] for
more details about this feature implemented by some terminal emulators.

[Hyperlinks (a.k.a. HTML-like anchors) in terminal emulators]: <https://gist.github.com/egmontkob/eb114294efbcd5adb1944c9f3cb5feda#the-escape-sequence>
------------------------------------------------------------------------

(this message was generated automatically)
-- 
Greetings

https://bugs.debian.org/1142460

[...]

Hi Chris, hi Johannes!

I made a first attempt of implementation for this feature in
apt-listbugs.
In the public git repository, branch `master`, you can find the relevant
changes to the apt-listbugs package.

In the next weeks, I will not have much time to dedicate to
apt-listbugs, hence the next upload to Debian unstable won't happen too
soon. Sorry about that!

However, if you like, you may test this new feature from the tip of the
git branch `master`, as a preview. In case you have time and are
willing to do so, please let me know how it went: does the new feature
meet your needs?

Please take into account that the escape sequences for hyperlinks are
generated by apt-listbugs unconditionally, even when stdout is not a
terminal.
This means that you may, for instance, redirect the stdout of
apt-listbugs to a file and later see the hyperlinks, when viewing that
file with `less -R`. This is the reason why I implemented the hyperlink
generation as an unconditional feature...
On the other hand, if you open that file with `vim`, you will see the
escape sequences and the URLs, rather than the interpreted and working
hyperlinks (I am not aware of a method to change this behavior of VIM
in Debian): depending on whether you want to edit the escape sequences,
or to click on them, this may or may not be the desired result in VIM...


I hope you may enjoy the convenience of terminal hyperlinks!