[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Solution strategy: Re: use and abuse of debconf



On Tue, Jan 16, 2001 at 02:11:41PM -0500, Matt Zimmerman wrote:

> This functionality should, I think, be integrated into the packaging system,
> like the current conffile mechanism.  A configuration file should be able to
> be tagged as either user-managed (behaving exactly as a current conffile) or
> script-managed.  The user should be able to, at any time, switch between
> these two states for a given configuration file, and maintainer scripts
> should be able to query their status easily.  There has already been some
> talk about enabling dpkg to track script-managed files.

Some might suggest that debconf is the right place to put this functionality.
I assume that 'templates' are called such for a reason; is it possible to use a
common question template, but substitute, say, a filename?  That would make it
possible for all packages to use a common template for this question, but store
their own answer.  This adds minimal complexity to the maintainer scripts, and
allows the UI to be universally the same.  Since all packages doing user
interaction in maintainer scripts should arguably use debconf, maybe there is
no need for dpkg to know about this at all.

There is still the question of enabling users to do, say, dlocate
/etc/my-script-managed-conffile and see where to go to reconfigure it.  Maybe
dpkg needs a 'script-managed-conffile' functionality, and debconf needs a
common template for this.

-- 
 - mdz



Reply to: