Feature Request: Would be nice to have a way to refresh .deb files

Metadata

Project: snapcraft (launchpad)
Number: #1640721
Type: issue
State: open
Author: ~aacid
Labels: —
Created: 2016-11-10 09:07 AM UTC
Updated: 2016-11-10 09:17 AM UTC
Closed: —

Current evaluation

Feature request to refresh only changed .deb files in a snap build instead of re-downloading the full ~300MB set. Open since 2017 with no labels, comments, or maintainer activity.

Suggested action: close stale

Reason: The issue is 3581 days old (~10 years) with zero comments, no labels, and no maintainer interaction. The underlying architecture has changed significantly since then — craft-parts now has a dedicated deb plugin with primed stage package tracking (commits like 'executor: store primed stage packages in prime state' and 'packages: preserve architecture in primed stage packages') that addresses incremental package handling in a different way than originally requested. The original unity8-snap context is long obsolete.

Impact: 30 Quick Win: 12.0 Staleness: 95 Complexity: 60 Confidence: 70 Support Request: 0

Issue body

At the moment the unity8-snap is around 300MB of .deb files. I would like a way to "refresh" them without having to clean and download them all again. I mean, let's say that only libraw1394-11 was updated in the repos, it would be much nicer having to download 31kB instead of 300 MB. I hope this is doable :)

Evaluation history

Date	Model	Scores	Action	Summary
2026-09-01 07:33 AM UTC	qwen/qwen3.8-27b	Impact: 30 Quick Win: 12.0 Staleness: 95 Complexity: 60 Confidence: 70 Support Request: 0	close stale	Feature request to refresh only changed .deb files in a snap build instead of re-downloading the full ~300MB set. Open since 2017 with no labels, comments, or maintainer activity.
2026-07-23 11:50 AM UTC	qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b	Staleness: 98 Complexity: 40 Confidence: 90 Support Request: 10	close stale	Feature request to implement incremental updates for .deb files instead of redownloading the full bundle. Open for nearly a decade with no maintainer interaction or labels.
2026-07-22 12:18 PM UTC	qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b	Staleness: 98 Complexity: 45 Confidence: 90 Support Request: 10	close stale	Feature request for a .deb refresh mechanism to avoid re-downloading large packages. Unlabeled, zero comments, and inactive for over nine years.
2026-07-09 07:32 PM UTC	qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6	Staleness: 98 Complexity: 30 Confidence: 95 Support Request: 10	close stale	Feature request to optimize .deb file downloads by only fetching updated packages instead of re-downloading the full set. Issue is completely inactive with no maintainer response or labels.
2026-06-20 07:13 PM UTC	qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6	Staleness: 98 Complexity: 15 Confidence: 90 Support Request: 10	close stale	Feature request for incremental .deb updates to re-download only changed packages instead of the full 300MB bundle. Currently open, unassigned, inactive, and lacks comments or labels.

Update history

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