On Fri, Oct 01, 1999 at 02:03:46PM +0200, Stefan Gybas wrote:
(on the topic of "new packages that will always use /usr/share/doc")
> AFAICS dpkg has 2 problems with this issue:
> 1. dpkg can't replace a directory with a symlink
> 2. dpkg does not know about multiple paths to the same file (i.e. it first
> creates a file at the new location and then removes the very same file
> again via the old location)
[...]
> So what is the exact reason why you think this will not work?
TTBOMK it will work, but it does have some shortcomings. First, we expect
that by woody's release (the next release after potato, whatever it'll
be called) no packages will still be using /usr/doc to actually store
docs, just symlinks. If so, then we can just rm /usr/doc from base-files,
and not have to worry about immediately changing all packages again --
on new installs /usr/doc won't exist, so no packages will create /usr/doc
symlinks when they're installed; on upgraded installs, people can clean
out /usr/doc by hand, or run a script from base-files, or something.
The other case which would mildly concern me is after /usr/doc gets limited
to symlinks only, what would happen if someone did:
# rm /usr/doc/*
# rmdir /usr/doc
# ln -s /usr/share/doc /usr/doc
# dpkg -i your_package
Handling symlinks from the postinst and prerm "just works" in these cases.
Please, save your creativity for other things, and just go with the flow on
this one, okay?
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.
``The thing is: trying to be too generic is EVIL. It's stupid, it
results in slower code, and it results in more bugs.''
-- Linus Torvalds
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