Re: Bug#766459: debootstrap: should not try to configure

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2014, Michael Tautschnig wrote:

> Then maybe take the first sentence in 3.8 Essential packages
> instead: "Essential is defined as the minimal set of functionality
> that must be available and usable on the system at all times, even
> when packages are in the "Unpacked" state."  If not this one (and
> not the one above), which bit of policy are you then relying on when
> you do the chown calls?

My intrepretation of policy regarding essential packages is that *once*
that they are configured for the first time, they should continue to
work at all times even if they are unconfigured for a while in the
middle of an upgrade.

This is consistent with the usual meaning of "bootstrap". It's
something that you only need to do once, because after that,
everything *keeps* working (but only *after* that).

Your interpretation of policy is a little bit different. If you ask
essential packages to provide its core functionality *even* when they
have not been configured for the *first* time, I bet that we would
have to rethink the whole essential thing from the beginning.

For example, your interpretation would force base-passwd to lose its
essential flag, because it can't provide its core functionality only
when in unpacked state. Then, according to policy, base-files and
*every* other package using any of the system users in any of its
maintainer scripts would have to add a "Depends: base-passwd", since
they depend on functionality which is only available after base-passwd
has been configured.

Frankly, I don't think that's what we want.

Thanks.