Re: Bug#201023: dosemu: purging doesmu wipes out all user data under /var/lib/dosemu)
<I'm subscriber of debian-devel>
I installed dosemu yesterday and found that /var/lib/dosemu/freedos is a
symlink ... so .. I **think** the correct way to install your software
under dosemu is install it to someplace (for example /home/old-software)
and create a symlink (/var/lib/dosemu/old-software.
Again, **I think** it's the best way so you can add to your users
.dosemurc :
$_hdimage = "freedos:ro old-software:rw"
so freedos will be in your C drive (read-only) and in D you software.
When you backup your box, you don't need to worry about /var/lib/dosemu
files, changed autoexecs ...so on ...
OK .. it's not correct to rm -fr some dirs ... but I found that creating
symlinks is the best way.
Just my 2 cents.
[]'s
On Sun, 2003-07-13 at 18:11, Roger Leigh wrote:
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> [CCd to -devel, because I'm very unhappy with the maintainer's
> response to what I consider to be an RC bug.]
>
> owner@bugs.debian.org (Debian Bug Tracking System) writes:
> > This is an automatic notification regarding your Bug report
> > #201023: dosemu: purging doesmu wipes out all user data under /var/lib/dosemu,
> > which was filed against the dosemu package.
> >
> > It has been closed by one of the developers, namely
> > Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>.
>
> Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > On Sat, Jul 12, 2003 at 10:43:50PM +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:
> >> Package: dosemu
> >> Version: 1.0.2.1-14
> >> Severity: critical
> >>
> >> I have set the severity to critical, because the current postrm script can
> >> cause very serious data loss.
> >>
> >> I dual boot with Windows98, and I have my Windows98 partition (/dev/hda1)
> >> mounted on /var/lib/dosemu/windows. I use this to run DOS applications
> >> (and my day job currently involves DOS application development) using the
> >> DOS partition directly. It's mounted read-write.
> >>
> >> I came to purge dosemu today, and when I next booted into Windows, I got a
> >> boot failure and a prompt for a system disk.... Looking at the dosemu
> >> postrm:
> >>
> >> purge)
> >> rm -rf /etc/dosemu /var/lib/dosemu
> >> ;;
> >>
> >> Yipe! Debian Policy (section 6.7, Details of removal and/or configuration purging)
> >> states that "purge" is for the removal of configuration files (which are not
> >> removed by "remove"). It is surely not to remove anything else!
> >>
> >> Please remove the "rm -rf" from the postrm. dpkg will handle the conffile removal,
> >> and if the user has left any data under /var/lib/dosemu, you should assume that it
> >> is important to them, rather than nuking it. In my case you are lucky--I keep a
> >
> > If it is important to you, then don't put it under /var/lib/dosemu.
>
> /var/lib/dosemu is where the user is expected to install their DOS
> operating system, programs and data files (even if it wasn't, your
> postrm is brain-dead). These files are all important to me. Yes,
> it's possible to install them elsewhere, but this is where dosemu
> suggests you put them, and as my DOS system was also a standalone
> filesystem, it made sense to mount it under there.
>
> Why do you think only unimportant data should be put under there?
> Have you documented this and amended the dosemu documentation?
>
> > This is a directory owned by the dosemu package and it will ensure its
> > removal upon purging.
>
> Why? Just let dpkg remove the conffiles and, if you really must, do
> something *non-destructive* like:
>
> if [ "$1" = purge ]; then
> # Remove these directories if they are empty
> rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty /etc/dosemu
> rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty /var/lib/dosemu
> fi
>
> I can't see any earthly reason why you need to nuke *everything*.
> Read dpkg(8) and look at the description of "purge". It's to remove
> *configuration files* (and potentially also data generated by the
> package), not blindly wipe out whole parts of the filesystem. Your
> postrm is taking unwarranted liberties with *my* system--it wiped out
> a 4 GiB filesystem.
>
> > If you want to keep data around even after purging a package, do not
> > put it under a directory owned by that package.
>
> But this is where the user is expected to install their data. I
> purged it with the expectation of re-installing it later on, and I was
> not expecting it to wipe out an entire filesystem.
>
> Frankly, I'm shocked at your attitude. Do you even care about your
> users' valulable data? I think you should re-evaluate what "purge"
> means, and whether you *really* need to "rm -rf" anything (you don't).
>
>
> Apache and PostgreSQL don't wipe out your website and databases when
> you purge them, so why do you think this is acceptable behaviour for
> dosemu?
>
>
>
> Regards,
> Roger
>
> - --
> Roger Leigh
>
> Printing on GNU/Linux? http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/
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