The section asked "Proceed?" without saying what it was proposing to change —
the one question in the script where the answer matters most, since it is the
only step that moves versions of software already on the machine.
pkg_upgradable now names them, from `apt-get upgrade -s`: the same calculation
the real run does, as opposed to `apt list --upgradable`, which also lists
packages held back that would not actually move.
Nothing to upgrade means no prompt at all, and the summary says so rather than
claiming an upgrade happened. The list is capped at 25 with a count of the rest,
because a box untouched for months lists hundreds and a wall of names is no more
informative than the number.
Verified against this host (0 upgradable, so it reports current and does not
ask) and with a stubbed 40-package list for the cap.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three sections where there were two, and none of them touches the machine until
you say so:
2. System update upgrades what is already installed
3. Core utils what the distribution provides
4. Command-line tools lazydocker, lazygit, starship, fastfetch
The split matters because these are different kinds of change and deserve
separate answers. System update is the only step in the whole script that moves
versions of software already on the machine; core utils only ever adds what is
absent; and the four tools are upstream binaries the distribution does not ship
at all. Previously the update and the core packages were one step and the tools
were tacked onto the end of it, so agreeing to "essentials" meant agreeing to all
three at once.
Every section now prints what it will install and what it is leaving alone, then
asks. Enter means yes — unlike the machine-role question, which has no default,
because these are "do the thing you already asked for" and making twenty of them
require a deliberate keystroke would train people to hold the y key down.
ASSUME_YES=1 answers all of them for an unattended run, and EOF fails with that
named rather than spinning.
Refusing is recorded rather than glossed: LAST_SKIPPED feeds the summary, so a
declined section reads "Core utils: SKIPPED by request — cowsay neofetch" instead
of quietly reporting nothing installed.
Nothing to install means no prompt at all — there is nothing to agree to.
announce_plan takes the array NAMES rather than their contents, because once a
list has been through word splitting an empty one cannot be told from a missing
one.
Verified all three paths: accept, refuse, and nothing-to-do.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The summary claimed credit for everything in a section's list, including the
packages it had just decided to leave alone — so a run that installed nothing
still ended with "Command-line tools: lazydocker lazygit starship fastfetch".
The announce above it said "nothing, all present" in the same breath.
pkg_install and tools_install now record LAST_INSTALLED and LAST_KEPT, and
summarise_last turns those into one honest line:
Core packages installed: btop tmux (17 already present)
Command-line tools: already present, nothing installed
Verified all three shapes — everything present, nothing present, and mixed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
lib/packages.sh, and section 2 wired to it.
The rule it exists to enforce: `apt-get install <present-package>` is not a
no-op, it upgrades the package if the repository has a newer one. On a machine
somebody already uses that silently moves a version they chose, and a setup
script is the last thing that should do that behind their back. pkg_install
queries the package database first and names only the genuinely absent packages
on the command line — a package already installed is never passed to apt at all.
It also says so out loud, every time, because a provisioning run should not be
opaque about what it is doing to the machine:
:: Core packages — installs what is missing, keeps what you already have
already here: curl ca-certificates gnupg git jq …
to install: btop tmux
Section 2's flat list of 19 is now pkgs_core(), split per package manager rather
than through a canonical-name table with overrides. The names genuinely disagree
(build-essential/base-devel, fd-find/fd) and three of them are not packages
elsewhere at all — apt-transport-https, lsb-release and software-properties-common
are apt concepts that exist to let later steps add the Docker repo and the
fastfetch PPA. A `case $PM` shows what each system actually gets, in one place.
Of those 19, six are load-bearing and the rest are the environment. Only
build-essential reaches beyond itself: it is a meta-package, so on a box with a
pinned gcc it pulls the distribution default alongside. Noted where it is
declared; it is the first thing to move out of core if that ever bites.
apt-get upgrade stays, but as its own announced step — it is the one place that
deliberately moves versions, rather than something that happens as a side effect
of asking for a tool.
DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive and NEEDRESTART_MODE=a now live inside the
helpers. needrestart has been on by default since Ubuntu 22.04 and stops to ask
which services to restart, which is how an unattended run ends up silently
waiting for a keypress.
dpkg-query on the status field rather than `dpkg -s`, which also succeeds for a
package removed but leaving its config behind — that state would read as present
and never be reinstalled.
Verified against this host's real dpkg database: all 19 report present, and a
mixed list correctly passes only the absent ones through.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
pastilhasandClaude Opus 5