Paul Wise wrote: > Bob Proulx wrote: > > How can I as a system administrator clean that obsolete conffile up? > > rm -f /etc/some-obsolete-conffile > apt-get --reinstall install package-that-provided-the-obsolete-conffile Ah! Thanks. That works. > > I have many obsolete conffiles on my system. > > Please file bugs about obsolete conffiles when you find new ones. The > packages themselves should clean up their obsolete conffiles. I am cleaning up Squeeze systems before upgrading. But even Wheezy and Sid have many. This is on my updated Sid system. $ dpkg-query -W -f='${Conffiles}\n' | awk '$NF=="obsolete"{print$1}' | xargs -L1 dlocate | awk -F: '{print$1}' | sort -u | wc -l 26 But it has been upgraded through many releases.. I don't know if these are still a problem in recent versions or if these have been hanging around since previous releases. I will clean up my Squeeze machines and upgrade them to Wheezy. Then any obsolete conffiles left will be current issues and can be filed. > To help with this task, you can install the package called > 'adequate' and enable the post-install debconf prompt. Thanks for that pointer. I will try it. > > But of course many packages are difficult to purge. > > Every package must be possible to purge, if it is not possible then it > is a release-critical issue and you should file a severity serious bug > against the package. I didn't say impossible. I said difficult. There are dependencies that cause a large cone to be removed. And then there are essential packages. I am still trying to use the system at the same time. $ sudo apt-get purge bash Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following extra packages will be installed: bash-static The following packages will be REMOVED: bash* bash-completion* bashdb* common-lisp-controller* devscripts-el* dpatch* emacs-goodies-el* foomatic-db-engine* foomatic-filters* lsb* lsb-printing* python-foomatic* The following NEW packages will be installed: bash-static WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed. This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing! bash 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 12 to remove and 203 not upgraded. Need to get 937 kB of archives. After this operation, 9,134 kB disk space will be freed. You are about to do something potentially harmful. To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!' ?] Thanks! Bob P.S. Here is my list on my Sid machine. $ dpkg-query -W -f='${Conffiles}\n' | awk '$NF=="obsolete"{print$1}' | xargs -L1 dlocate | awk -F: '{print$1}' | sort -u asciidoc base-files bash-completion bashdb chromium-browser cvs epiphany-browser-data firebird2.5-common gimp-data gnome-panel-data gsfonts iceweasel lightdm lsb-core mailgraph setserial shorewall shorewall6 smartmontools source-highlight stunnel4 subversion-tools ttf-arphic-uming vlc-data w3c-markup-validator xserver-xorg-video-intel
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature