Re: Bug#201023: dosemu: purging doesmu wipes out all user data under /var/lib/dosemu)
Steve Greenland <steveg@moregruel.net> wrote:
> On 15-Jul-03, 06:54 (CDT), Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> wrote:
> > > And all configuration files, but not all user data. When you purge emacs,
> > > you don't also remove all the text files that you've written with emacs,
> >
> > Sure, but then you don't put them in /var/lib/emacs do you?
>
> I think part of the problem, in this particular case, is that dosemu
> doesn't provide and easy way to put disk images anywhere else.
The other problem is that DOSEMU predates the FHS. The FHS tells us
(about /var/lib) "Users must never need to modify files in /var/lib to
configure a package's operation". Since DOSEMU 1.0.2 it is encouraged
to have per-user boot directories (for instance in ~/dosemu) -- the
Debian setup however sets up an r/o boot directory with a symbolic
link from /var/lib/dosemu. /var/lib/dosemu is still supported for backwards
compatibility.
I'm strongly thinking about (for the next stable version, 1.2.0)
removing /var/lib/dosemu. Current development versions now support:
* absolute paths in $_hdimage (this in itself can solve the problem)
* $_hdimage looks in ~/.dosemu before /var/lib/dosemu
What should probably be done to complete this is to simply use symbolic links
/etc/dosemu instead of /var/lib/dosemu; the symlinks in /etc/dosemu are
pure configuration after all.
About documentation: yes, it's out-of-date, but slowly getting
updated. Any help is always welcome.
Bart Oldeman
(upstream development maintainer)
Reply to: