On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 02:48:08PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > Steve Langasek <vorlon@netexpress.net> writes: > > Since apt is not Debian-specific, it's reasonable to not want a > > Debian-specific preferences file shipped by default. Rather, the file > > should probably be provided by some other component of the Debian > > installer, IMHO. I don't know which package this would be, however. > I don't have any particular reason to say what package it should be > in. My complaint about the status quo is relevent, however, for as > long as nobody thinks it belongs in *their* part of the system. > The apt maintainer thinks it should not be in the apt package. > If it is added only to the Debian installer, then people who upgrade > (rather than reinstall) will probably never get it, and that's not > adequate. Having this done automatically on upgrade is touchy; there may be non-Debian repositories in the user's sources.list already, and adding a preferences file on top of that could break existing configs. At best, this would have to be done with the user's explicit consent; at worst, we'll find that no maintainer of an existing package of sufficient priority considers this an appropriate fit for his/her package. A quick scan of all Priority: required and Essential: yes packages suggests to me that the only other existing package suitable for this would be base-files. Santiago, are you averse to the idea of providing a default /etc/apt/preferences as part of this package? I think anyone who is doing an upgrade of an existing potato machine can be trusted to figure sources.list out well enough to add their own references to testing & unstable. As for fresh installs, it would be easy to make base-config add multiple sources.list entries (woody,testing,unstable) for each apt source. Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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