Bug#2452: ncurses problem is related to "dpkg" bug

[bruce@Pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

From: Michael Alan Dorman <mdorman@lot49.med.miami.edu>
> David's right---ncurses is a symlink to ., that way ncurses/curses.h
> will work, as would curses.h.

OK - now I see what happened to my system that makes it different from
David and Ian's systems, and it looks like a "dpkg" bug.  My system
contains a directory /usr/include/ncurses, which itself contains
curses.h.bak and nothing else. No doubt this is left over from a
previous installation, and the directory was not removed because I once
edited curses.h and the .bak file was left there by the editor. Thus,
dpkg did not install the symbolic link, and what's more _dpkg did not
complain about the situation_, and _still does not complain_.

> The shared library packages shouldn't install to xxx.so.1.new and then
> move that to xxx.so.1, correct?  They should just install stuff in the
> "correct" place, right?

This is a dpkg detail I'm not too clear on - you may still have to install
it to xxx.so.1.new and then "mv" it into place - but that's not the problem.
The problem is that you can't have an interval during which xxx.so.1 does
not exist. Thus, do not "mv" the old version out of the way first as you
currently do in your prerm and preinst scripts, just use "mv" to overwrite
it.

	Bruce
--
Bruce Perens <Bruce@Pixar.com> A campaigner for Clinton and against Censorship.
Toy Story: $183M and counting. At $184M it will beat the #1 movie of 1995.