PSA: apt-listbugs can open bug reports in your browser

1

Hi all,

Francesco Poli reminded me that you can easily get more details about the bugs which apt-listbugs listed by entering the interactive menue by hitting the question mark symbol ?. So when you install packages or upgrade and get a list like this:

Retrieving bug reports... Done
Parsing Found/Fixed information... Done
grave bugs of context (ā†’ 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 (ā†’ 20260311) <Outstanding>
 b2 - #1142266 - ca-certificates-java: doesn't refresh /etc/ssl/certs/java/cacerts on upgrade from bookworm serious bugs of inkscape (ā†’ 1.4.3-1+b1) <Outstanding>
 b3 - #1141190 - Non-free license on Hershey fonts serious bugs of texlive-formats-extra (ā†’ 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/?/...]

Then you can hit ? for a full list of options which you can choose from at this prompt. The most interesting options are the ones at the top:

      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>.

So if you do not want to remember that to get more details about a bug you can go to https://bugs.debian.org/XXXXXXX but replace XXXXXXX with one of the bug numbers above, then you can just enter b1, b2, b3 and so on to have the bug URL opened in your default browser.

Hope this helps!

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