On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 08:58:58PM -0400, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 05:34:35PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> > * The system administrator can have created that symlink manually in
> > order to distribute files differently over his filesystems, in which
> > case we should not change it into a directory silently.
> Isn't the system administrator is discouraged from manipulating filesystem
> objects that should be under the control of the packaging system? If
> she wants to distribute files over different filesystems, there are better
> ways (like mount, especially in 2.4.x).
No, she's not. Using symlinks (especially before 2.4.x) is the supported
way of rearranging things.
> I don't quite understand what you're saying. What would cause those other
> files to disappear? The symlink could be unpacked as foo.dpkg-new, then the
> old directory removed and/or renamed and the symlink switched into place.
Package foo contains:
/usr/foo
/usr/foo/a
/usr/foo/b
Package bar 1 contains:
/usr/foo
/usr/foo/x
Package bar 2 contains:
/usr/foo -> /var/bar
/var/bar
/var/bar/x
Install foo and bar 1, and you have:
/usr/foo
/usr/foo/a
/usr/foo/b
/usr/foo/x
Then upgrade to bar 2, and you end up with:
/usr/foo -> /var/bar
/var/bar/x
With nowhere to put 'a' and 'b'.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
``_Any_ increase in interface difficulty, in exchange for a benefit you
do not understand, cannot perceive, or don't care about, is too much.''
-- John S. Novak, III (The Humblest Man on the Net)
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