Bug#2831: timezone conffiles vs. postinst

[Fernando <alegre@mars.superlink.net>]

On Tue, 30 Apr 1996, Bruce Perens wrote:

> The problem happens when you go to upgrade the timezone package. If I
> say "Y" to the control file prompt, the package will replace my
> _configured_ /etc/timezone with the one for Factory. Since you create

1) If I am not wrong, the prompt will appear only if the configuration
file that _I_ provide changes, but I don't think I will ever have to
change it. So you should never see that prompt. Why did you have such a
file before installing my package? It was not provided by the previous
timezone package.

2) If you say "Y" to such a prompt you'd better know what you're doing.
And that applies for every conf file. Why should timezone be different to
password in that respect?

> this file in the postinst script if it does not exist, you should not
> also create debian-tmp/etc/timezone when you build the package, and you
> should not put it in debian.conffiles . If you make those changes, the file

I am afraid I don't agree with you. I want it to be a conffile. That way,
you can remove the timezone package (not purge!) and the time zone will
still be correct. This is a nice feature for a space constrained system.
And since /etc/timezone is a conffile if you ever need to re-install the
package the time zone will automatically be configured correctly. That
was the main purpose of this file.

> will be created when it does not exist, and will not be replaced if there is
> no need to replace it. Also, the user will not be presented with an
> unnecessary prompt to replace it.

That is exacly what happens now, unless you happenned to have a ghost
/etc/timezone.

>
> Is this any clearer? If not, I could send you patches for your debian.rules
> file.
>

I don't want to change it unless I'm still missing something obvious. As
it is now, you shouldn't have seen that prompt and you shouldn't ever see
it again unless you did something which bypassed my layout.
The file /etc/timezone in my opinion must be a conffile and I don't want
to change that.

Regards,
	Fernando.