When you are following instructions for Onionizing Repositories it tells you to edit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list but when you open /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list on Whonix it says: Instead of directly editing this file, the user is advised to create the following file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/user.list. This is because when this package gets updated, /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list will be overwritten and may receive new default values and comments. The entire folder /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ gets scanned for additional sources.list files by apt-get. The user may keep their settings even after updating this package.
Should we create /etc/apt/sources.list.d/user.list instead of editing /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list? If we create that file (which now contains onion repositories) instead of editing default file (which contains clearnet repositories) and then update our system or install something, which scenario will happen:
We download packages using onion repositories (from user.list)
We download packages using both, onion repositories (from user.list) and clearnet repositories (from debian.list)
It’s true. Customizing such configuration files has bad usability. More information:
Unfortunately, not.
Yes.
I can confirm this this is a bit of a contradiction of wiki versus configuration files. But this isn’t simple.
Not sure what documentation should suggest instead.
The user could copy /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/user.list. Then delete /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list. APT should recognize the user modified (deleted) configuration file and not re-install it without explicit user consent.
Then managing /etc/apt/sources.list.d/user.list would be fully up to the user. It would be advisable on each release upgrade to check the source code what /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list looks like and apply any important changes/improvements to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/user.list, if any.