[icebraining]

Well, the criticism was in fact "you can't install software while updating your system," and it's true - if your system is updating, you have to wait to install another package.

In practice, I don't see this as a major problem, but on the other hand, many people have slower connections that me.

It'd be nice if the apt clients could download the packages without locking the database, and let you select and queue packages even if others are already being installed.

[ktizo]

That certainly appears to be the original criticism, but the criticism seemed to be moving, so I answered where it had seemingly moved to.

Is the risk of trying to shoot a moving target.