Is there a way to suppress "update-alternatives: warning: skip creation" warnings when building a Docker image?

Question

Building this Dockerfile:

FROM ubuntu:19.10

ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND noninteractive

RUN apt-get update 
RUN apt-get install -y locales apt-utils
RUN sed -i -e 's/# en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8/' /etc/locale.gen && \
    dpkg-reconfigure locales && \
    update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

ENV LANG en_US.UTF-8 

RUN apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y vim 

CMD /bin/bash

Outputs some warning messages:

update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/da/man1/vi.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/da/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group vi) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/de/man1/vi.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/de/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group vi) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/fr/man1/vi.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/fr/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group vi) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/it/man1/vi.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/it/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group vi) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/ja/man1/vi.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/ja/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group vi) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/pl/man1/vi.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/pl/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group vi) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/ru/man1/vi.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/ru/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group vi) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/man1/vi.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group vi) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/da/man1/view.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/da/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group view) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/de/man1/view.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/de/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group view) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/fr/man1/view.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/fr/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group view) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/it/man1/view.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/it/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group view) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/ja/man1/view.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/ja/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group view) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/pl/man1/view.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/pl/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group view) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/ru/man1/view.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/ru/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group view) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/man1/view.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group view) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/da/man1/ex.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/da/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group ex) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/de/man1/ex.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/de/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group ex) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/fr/man1/ex.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/fr/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group ex) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/it/man1/ex.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/it/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group ex) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/ja/man1/ex.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/ja/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group ex) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/pl/man1/ex.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/pl/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group ex) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/ru/man1/ex.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/ru/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group ex) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/man1/ex.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group ex) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/da/man1/editor.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/da/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group editor) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/de/man1/editor.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/de/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group editor) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/fr/man1/editor.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/fr/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group editor) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/it/man1/editor.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/it/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group editor) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/ja/man1/editor.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/ja/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group editor) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/pl/man1/editor.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/pl/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group editor) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/ru/man1/editor.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/ru/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group editor) doesn't exist
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/man1/editor.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/man1/vim.1.gz (of link group editor) doesn't exist

1. Preferably, I don't want the man pages to be installed at all
2. Also I don't want man pages for de, fr, it, ja, pl, ru languages (if 1. is not possible, I only need en man pages)

Is there a way to prevent apt from installing these man pages and then printing these warnings as it can't find their associated files?

Answer 1

If you just want to save disk space and/or network bandwidth, try this:

echo 'path-exclude /usr/share/doc/*' >/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-minimal && \ 
echo 'path-exclude /usr/share/man/*' >>/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-minimal && \
echo 'path-exclude /usr/share/groff/*' >>/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-minimal && \
echo 'path-exclude /usr/share/info/*' >>/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-minimal && \
echo 'path-exclude /usr/share/lintian/*' >>/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-minimal && \
echo 'path-exclude /usr/share/linda/*' >>/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-minimal && \
echo 'path-exclude /usr/share/locale/*' >>/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-minimal && \
echo 'path-include /usr/share/locale/en*' >>/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-minimal

As long as you'll try to install some APT packages, no man pages would be saved to disk. The warning will still be there, but the man pages not.

The problem here is that some packages calls the update-alternatives binary from within the postinst section of the .deb packages. See https://manpages.debian.org/buster/dpkg/update-alternatives.1.en.html. Don't know if you can also ask DPKG to not execute the postinst section at all, but it does not sounds good! You may also write a small wrapper to update-alternatives in order to suppress the warnings, but this sound silly.