Re: IMPORTANT: What can we do about the base package?
On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Joey Hess <joey@kite.ml.org> writes:
> > How about releasing an update of the base package that contains no files,
> > but instead runs MAKEDEV to generate the files in /dev? Then after you
> > install it, you can unistall it safely, without killing /dev.
>
> Given the way dpkg currently runs, even if you archived /dev in the
> pre-install script and restored it in the post-install script, there
> would be an interval during which your /dev directory would be gone and
> your system would probably die horribly at that point.
>
> I think the only solution right now is to do brain surgery on
> /var/lib/dpkg/status to forcibly remove the paragraph for the base
> package. Ugly, I'm sorry.
>
As I understand it, this is only a problem for an upgrade, and the only
files left dangling are the /dev files.
Shouldn't these files be "owned" by makedev? It's not clear how to assign
this ownership, but the makedev post install could run MAKEDEV standard to
insure that all the standard devices were "up to date". Another, more
complex option might be to have base-files pre-depend on makedev and have
its postinst script run a standard MAKEDEV.
On a more general note, I have noticed that the dpkg database has entries
in it for packages that are no longer on my system and, in fact, do not
exist any more, but have not been obsoleted. When is it appropriate to
modify the database, and is there a dpkg option that will "clean" up the
database to reflect the current state of available packages?
Thanks,
Dwarf
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aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (904) 656-9769
Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road
e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308
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