Re: Bug 99208

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On 30 Dec 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:

> Please take a look at #99208 in the BTS, and give me some advice.
>
> The complaint is that there are a bunch of files in xpuzzles that
> needed to be marked conffiles, but were not.  Then, when that was
> fixed, the result was that a whole bunch of files now got marked as
> conffiles, and the result was that a bunch of user verifications
> becomes necessary the first time someone upgrades.
>
> It seems to me that this is inherent in the task (as mentioned in
> the BTS log by the previous maintainer).  Accordingly, I think I
> should just close the bug.
>
> But: is there a way to prevent the annoyance now?
>
> And: was there a way to prevent it in the first place (even if it's
> too late now)?

If only the location but not the contents of the files changed from
potato to woody, you can use the prerm to copy/move the files to the
new location before dpkg realizes they didn't previously exist.

If both the location and the contents changed you can keep a small
database of md5sums to decide whether or not to put the new files
in place in the prerm before dpkg prompts.