Bug#556426: install overwrites /etc/default/console-setup without warning

[Shai Berger <shai@platonix.com>]

Package: console-setup
Version: 1.46
Severity: normal


Hi,

This bug may be a dupe for bug #527641. I tried first
to report it as additional information (and reopening)
of that bug, but the attempt was rejected.

Please note that the original bug was marked "serious" for
overwriting the configuration file; according to what I
see here, if that severity was valid, it is still valid here.

The new info:

I made my own variant of the Hebrew keyboard mapping to add a couple of 
symbols; I called it "katef" and referred it in /etc/default/console-setup, 
like so:

--- console-setup~      2009-09-07 04:03:15.000000000 +0300
+++ console-setup       2009-11-15 10:52:02.000000000 +0200
@@ -38,6 +38,6 @@
 # in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
 XKBMODEL="pc101"
 XKBLAYOUT="us,il"
-XKBVARIANT=","
+XKBVARIANT=",katef"
 XKBOPTIONS="grp:alt_caps_toggle,grp_led:scroll"

However, on occasion I would see this change being undone; this time I finally 
got annoyed enough to track it down[1], and found bug #527641; also, the 
modification date on my file matches the last update of console-setup.  

I don't fully understand the discussion on the bug, but if I understand 
correctly, console-setup takes debconf's opinion of what the file should look 
like a little too seriously; and this may have been made worse by debconf's 
lack of support of multiple layouts, as reported/discussed in #506467.

Thanks,
        Shai.


[1] This is made a little hard by the fact that, although the console-setup 
package modifies /etc/default/console-setup, it is not reported as its owner 
by "dpkg -S". 

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.31-1-686 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages console-setup depends on:
ii  console-terminus              4.28-2     Fixed-width fonts for fast reading
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.28     Debian configuration management sy
ii  xkb-data                      1.6-1      X Keyboard Extension (XKB) configu

Versions of packages console-setup recommends:
ii  console-tools              1:0.2.3dbs-66 Linux console and font utilities

Versions of packages console-setup suggests:
ii  locales                       2.10.1-7   GNU C Library: National Language (
ii  lsb-base                      3.2-23     Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip

-- debconf information:
  console-setup/variant: Israel
  console-setup/unsupported_options: true
  console-setup/ctrl_alt_bksp: false
  console-setup/modelcode: pc101
  console-setup/use_system_font:
  console-setup/fontsize: 16
  console-setup/unsupported_layout: true
  console-setup/layoutcode: us,il
  debian-installer/console-setup/title:
  console-setup/codesetcode: Lat15
  console-setup/altgr: The default for the keyboard layout
  console-setup/ttys: /dev/tty[1-6]
  console-setup/codeset: # Latin1 and Latin5 - western Europe and Turkic languages
* console-setup/toggle: Alt+Caps Lock
  console-setup/fontface: Fixed
  console-setup/fontsize-text: 16
  console-setup/compose: No compose key
  debian-installer/console-setup-udeb/title:
  console-setup/other:
  console-setup/switch: No temporary switch
  console-setup/unsupported_config_layout: true
  console-setup/charmap: UTF-8
  console-setup/optionscode: grp:alt_caps_toggle,grp_led:scroll
  console-setup/unsupported_config_options: true
  console-setup/layout: Israel
  console-setup/variantcode: ,
  console-setup/model: Generic 101-key PC
  console-setup/fontsize-fb: 16