Re: (proposed) Mass bug filing?for debconf "abuse" by using low|medium priority debconf notes?
On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 07:41:53PM +0200, Christian Perrier wrote:
> As a conclusion and combining both, I would really like to unsderstand
> why so many fellow developers insist on using LOW priority NOTES in
> their debconf templates and use them in maintainer scripts.
Speaking for my own packages it's a combination of policy requirements
to warn about device files and straight translations of pre-Debconf
maintainer scripts. At a guess the latter reason (plus new notes added
before NEWS.Debian was introduced) is the most common. Previously the
general style for Debian was fairly chatty maintainer scripts.
For the packages warning about device files the reason is likely to be
policy section 10.6 "Device files" which requires notification to the
user when creating device files and suggests using a low priority
Debconf message to do this:
| If a package needs any special device files that are not included in
| the base system, it must call `MAKEDEV' in the `postinst' script,
| after notifying the user[1].
...
| [1] This notification could be done via a (low-priority) debconf message,
| or an echo (printf) statement.
A note seems to be the only way for Debconf using packages to comply
with this: they aren't allowed to output except via Debconf and that
seems the most appropriate template type.
It'd probably be worth getting policy updated here.
--
"You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream - or a fever."
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