dpkg 0.93.63: minor changes, preinst check fixed
IMPORTANT: alpha testers should read the release notes below. This
software has already had one bug that could eat your system and
several that could badly mangle its status databases and cause
packages to be broken.
If you are already using 0.93.62 and don't want the new --search
functionality you probably don't need to upgrade. (If you're using
0.93.61 or earlier you definitely do need to upgrade).
This version works around the bash exit status bug/misfeature
triggered in the preinst script. This is only important if you're
upgrading to the new C dpkg from the old Perl one. If you are doing
this upgrade you should make sure that you use 0.93.63 if you have
bash 1.14.1.
dpkg (0.93.63) ALPHA; priority=LOW
* preinst works around shell bug/misfeature involving `trap'.
* dpkg --skip-same-version doesn't skip packages which have
an error flag set or which aren't in a standard `installed' state.
* dpkg --search now does a substring search if the string doesn't
start with a wildcard character (*, [ or ?) or slash.
* problem with C/C++ linkage of stuff in "myopt.h" fixed, to help
with compiling with GCC 2.7.0.
* dselect Makefile.in `clean' deletes curkeys.inc &c, so that they are
not shipped in the distribution source and will be rebuilt on the
target system.
-- Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk> Thu, 27 Jul 1995 13:38:47 +0100
9cc3cd5552a44800e3de0fce46aa3d61 dpkg-0.93.63.deb
9af20fe128a9424062aa2858ebc438ae dpkg-0.93.63.nondebbin.tar.gz
4e81657319e9f2332bfcae60b4300fee dpkg-0.93.63.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 383937 Jul 27 14:02 dpkg-0.93.63.deb
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root ian 381888 Jul 27 13:59 dpkg-0.93.63.nondebbin.tar.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ian ian 217455 Jul 27 13:47 dpkg-0.93.63.tar.gz
This is the new C dpkg, available for alpha testing.
To be a candidate alpha tester you need:
1. To be competent. You need to know at least roughly how dpkg
is supposed to work, and you need to be able to edit
/var/lib/dpkg/status.
2. Backups of your system. This version of dpkg has code that can
call `rm -rf -- <something>' ! I have hedged it with checks,
but something might go wrong.
3. Coredumps enabled.
What would be especially useful would be for someone who has plenty of
spare disk space to try a test installation.
Features in the new release include:
* Full support for virtual packages.
* Completely rewritten in C - much faster.
* No longer vulnerable to bugs in `tar' (better handling of
symlinks, etc).
* Better conffiles handling - tends to prompt less about
files the user has never heard of, and also doesn't routinely
displace the users' files while unpacking the archive.
* Better handling of files that always need to be present -
no more need to use `ln' and `mv' in the maintainer scripts.
* Better handling of files from one package which overwrite
some from another.
* More maintainable.
IMPORTANT: there is a problem with conffiles that will only happen
once, but it will happen to ordinary users as well as you alpha
testers:
The conffile naming scheme for unpacked but not configured packages
has changed in this version. It used to be <foo>.dpkg-tmp for the
user's version and <foo> for the package maintainer's new one. These
are now <foo> and <foo>.dpkg-new respectively.
This means that the users files are not messed about with
unnecessarily, but it does mean that if you use the new dpkg to
configure a package unpacked with an earlier version, but not yet
configured, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR CONFIGURATION INFORMATION.
You should be aware of this, and use the old Perl dpkg to get packages
in an appropriate state before installing dpkg 0.93.50.
YOU SHOULD INSTALL DPKG 0.93.50 IN A DPKG RUN ALL ON ITS OWN. This is
for the same reason - if anything goes wrong, you may find yourself
with dpkg 0.93.50 on the system and some unconfigured packages that
you can't fix.
The preinst script will notice that you're upgrading from pre-0.93.50,
warn you and give you the option to back out of the installation. It
will also spot packages which are in `bad' states and offer to abort
the installation, and let you know what to do after you've aborted.
The Perl version (equivalent to 0.93.42.3) is also installed, as
`perl-dpkg'. Don't use it unless absolutely necessary.
Known issues outstanding are:
* Dependency and conflict processing needs better testing. If you
notice odd behaviour please report it, with a copy of your
/var/lib/dpkg/status file and details of what you did. Use
--force-depends, or --ignore-depends=<package>, if necessary.
* There is no support for reassembling split packages.
* There are no options yet to set conffiles update behaviour.
* The binary is currently statically linked, unstripped and contains
debugging symbols. It has some malloc-paranoia enabled too.
I'll change this when the new dpkg is beta.
When you report a bug whose cause isn't immediately obvious, bear in
mind that the following information may make it much easier for me to
find the problem:
(i) If the bug is reproducible, provide the output of running dpkg
with some useful combination of debugging flags:
dbg_general= 00001,
dbg_scripts= 00002,
dbg_eachfile= 00010,
dbg_eachfiledetail= 00100,
dbg_conff= 00020,
dbg_conffdetail= 00200,
dbg_depcon= 00040,
dbg_depcondetail= 00400,
dbg_veryverbose= 01000,
dbg_stupidlyverbose= 02000,
Specify any combination of these using -D<octal>. -D7777 is likely
to be very large - if I need that much detail I'll mail you and ask
for it.
(ii) If you get a segfault: ensure you get a core file, and at the
very least run gdb on it and mail me the output of `where'. If
it's not too large (500Kb, say) gzip it, uuencode it and mail it to
me in a separate message. Don't delete it, I may ask for it.
(iii) Provide a copy of your /var/lib/dpkg/status file, preferably
before and after the problem manifests itself. gzip and uuencode
it if it is large.
(iv) Tell me where I can get any .deb files required to reproduce the
problem. Provide their MD5 checksums.
--
Ian Jackson, at home. ijackson@nyx.cs.du.edu or iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk
+44 1223 575512 Escoerea on IRC. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/iwj10/
2 Lexington Close, Cambridge, CB4 3LS, England. Urgent: iwj10@thor.cam.co.uk
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