Clarification: Eliminate nagging at installation time?

[Norbert Nemec <nobbi@cheerful.com>]

Ok, thanks for your reactions. I know, guys like me can get on ones
nerves... :-)

I'm moving this thread to debian-policy, where I should have started it
rigth at the beginning. Please reply there.

I knew there would be people working on that problem, but actually, my idea
goes into some completely different direction than the ones I could find in
the archives and that ones that are being worked on. (At least from what I
could find.

In fact: Debian installation needs some way for auto-configuration, there
are several solutions proposed for that and being worked on. What I was
thinking about is closely linked to that problem but actually is independant
from it:

I do not talk about where packages should get their configuration
information from, I did talk about what they do, if they do not have the
information necessary. (And even with he perfect autoconfig system, there
will be stuations when the packages lack some information they need to
configure completely)

IMO, packages should under no circumstances complain
about anything if it is avoidable at all. No matter if there is a automatic
configuration system or not. We should simply make it policy that a package
should always install to some safe state without asking any questions at
installation time. Now, if there is any configuration necessary before the
package can be used, it should put a notice in a log file that is viewed
automatically after all packages have been installed.

It was said, this would be a long process because a large heap of packages
will have to be worked over. If it is made policy and bugs are filed against
packages that do not comply, the process should not be that long. Of course,
we can leave the maintainers plenty of time before the severity of these
bugs is raised, but once there is a apropriate logging mechanism within the
postinst scripts, it will not be a big deal to change anyway.

Perhaps as one quick intermediate solution until we have or perfect
configure system: Put up a directory where any package that need some
configuration can put in a script. (perhaps created in the postinst) Then
have one global script "debian-config" or however you want to call it, that
does nothing but call all the scripts in that directory and delete each one
after successful completion. This will be very easy to use for any package
maintainer and be a useable solution until all packages have a real
configuration system.

Ciao,
Nobbi

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