Re: (proposed) Mass bug filing for debconf "abuse" by using low|medium priority debconf notes?
On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 10:36:11AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> > Christian Perrier wrote:
> >> In short, a note should only be used for IMPORTANT stuff, so actually
> >> all debconf notes should be priority high....or should not exist!
> > It's better to simply remove them all: If it's an error, use the new
> > error data type, which will always be displayed no matter the priority.
> > If it's not an error, put it in NEWS.Debian, README.Debian, etc.
> > The only thing stopping me from making debconf notes a no-op is the note
> > in d-i's nobootloader, which is a fairly legitimate note (not error), that
> > can't really be put anywhere else, and possibly the partman help note
> > (though noone reads that note).
> Hmm. Any time a package has to tell the user "You need to do something
> manually. It's not being done automatically because we haven't figured out
> how to do that, but it's really really important to do it manually"
> -- then a high-priority debconf note is appropriate.
Not according to the designer of debconf. There are other mechanisms that
are more appropriate than interrupting the install with this information,
such as using NEWS.Debian. The current limitation is that NEWS.Debian
doesn't have i18n support; I had hoped to work on this for etch, but time
got away from me.
But certainly, apt-listchanges should at this point be getting installed by
default on new systems.
> Upgrades which require programs to be restarted should do it automatically.
> But if for some obscure reason they can't, then a high-priority note is
> reasonable.
If this obscure reason always applies, then that's better put in
NEWS.Debian. If the obscure reason is that the maintainer script tried to
do the automatic restart but failed, a debconf error message would certainly
be reasonable.
> Upgrades from really-messed-up versions may also require people to do
> something manually to clean up from the messed-up version.
In that case you only want to bother the folks who had the really messed-up
version installed, so a conditional note also seems appropriate, yes.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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