Re: A "hard line" on users placing files on debian's "turf"?
mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell) writes:
> On Mon Aug 21, mdw@CS.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh) said:
>
> > fea@fea.rrd.ornl.gov (James D. Freels) writes:
> > > But won't it be best to install such things under the /usr/local tree?
> > [...]
> > What Debian can do is flag any files in /usr/bin, etc. which aren't
> > contained in the listings for the various installed packages. So,
> > at upgrade time, these files can either be saved or overwritten.
> > If it so happens that someone overwrites a Debian-installed file
> > in /usr/bin, that should be their own problem (e.g., assume they
> > wanted to do that, which is often true).
>
> One situation which this doesn't address is where a user installs
> foo.deb, which contains /usr/bin/bar (and other files), then manually
> replaces /usr/bin/bar with a non-debian version, then upgrades foo.deb.
> The user-installed file /usr/bin/bar will be silently overwritten during
> the package upgrade.
I think that's perfectly acceptible. It should be made clear to users
that files installed by .deb packages can only be tracked if they are,
in fact, part of .deb packages.
mdw
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