On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 11:00:07AM -0500, Steve Greenland wrote: > On 20-Jun-02, 09:22 (CDT), Scott Dier <dieman@ringworld.org> wrote: > > Steve Greenland wrote: > > >Fourthly, if you can specify a reasonable default, don't ask at all. > > I disagree, use the lowest debconf priority for these sorts of > > questions. > The problem with asking questions in debconf and then writing a > configuration file based on them is that means you can't use the > conffile mechanism to manage upstream changes in the configuration > file, which is a HUGE loss for the user. Now, if you're already using > debconf, because shipping a a default conffile is not suitable, then > adding low-priority quesitons is reasonable. But if the choice is > between shipping a usable default configuration or using a low-priority > template, you should just ship the default. (Note that the choice is > *not* between a default configuration and a high-priority template: if > you can make a reasonable default choice, then it's ipso-facton not > high-priority.) Agreed. In practice, I'm not sure this sort of debconf abuse actually occurs -- can you cite an example? I'll be happy to write both bug reports and patches for any packages that behave this way. Most packages that come to mind that use debconf instead of conffiles all include at least one question which ought to be high priority, from what I've seen. Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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