Re: Bug#25388: ~/.psdevtab not removed/updated
[cc'ed onto debian-devel because it's a tricky one]
Ian Jackson wrote:
> Package: procps, makedev
> Version: 1:1.2.7-1, 1.6-32
>
> I've just upgraded a system from (mainly) Debian 1.3 to 2.0. I say
> `mainly' because this system was initially installed as 0.93R5, and
> parts of it may still date from then.
>
> After the upgrade, `w' did not work any more. On examination I found
> that `w' in my test account still worked, and that removing my
> ~/.psdevtab cured the problem. (I therefore did this to every user
> account.)
>
> I suspect this to be due to the changes to the pty device names
> between 1.3 and 2.0.
>
> Either w should know to update this file automatically, or makedev
> should know to remove it.
OK, as said in another email, we cannot remove files from users directories,
so the second option is out.
There have been some massive changes from the bo procps to the hamm procps,
pretty well everything is different. bo used a heavily patched version of
procps 1.2.3 which was different to what the upstream guys used. When I
took over looking after procps, I moved it back to the standard procps as
the patches were getting too buggy. In doing so, I would say there were
incompatibilities between the patched and unpatched versions of procps.
In other words procps is incompatible with older versions of itself, not
makedev.
I believe, to be honest, that it would be unrealistic for anyone to attempt to
write a 'w' such that it could understand the new and old psdevtab's, the
package gets around this problem with the main psdevtab file by removing
it in the postinstall script.
The only real solution is to get that psdevtab removed somehow if upgrading from
bo to hamm (or rather the old procps to the new). I can either get postinst
to do it (which probably breaks some rule) or to inform people about it.
- Craig
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