Re: Bug#176506: Make debconf mandatory for prompting the user
On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Eduard Bloch wrote:
> > So, IMHO, packages should not be prompting the user _ever_ at maintainer
> > scripts, unless it is done through debconf.
>
> Look, upgrades are a complicated problems to make the process work
> non-interactively. It is not easy to handle changes in the conffiles using
I know what I am talking about. I've been there, done that to some of my
packages, including what is currently in fetchmail (if the new maintainer
did not replace it entirely).
Nowhere did I state I want to preconfigure everything, or anything like
that. I would like all config stuff to be done through debconf, and that IS
possible (just ask whatever can't be preconfigured in postinst, using
debconf, and make the postinst indepondent as policy dictates, anyway).
> debconf-like methods since conffiles are only compared when the package
You are NOT to use debconf-like methods to fuck conffiles up. If you are
going to modify it in maintainer scripts, it must not be a conffile, which
means it must not be shipped inside /etc in the deb at all...
As I said, I know what I am talking about.
> has been extracted. Even if you wish to configure all conffiles in one run
> without interruptions, it would require changes in dpkg. The conffiles
I don't want anything to require user input WITHOUT the use of Debconf. Just
that, and that's all I wrote in my past reply to this thread.
For policy, I do think it is enough that we mandate that no prompting shall
be done ever (through anything but debconf) when running under the
non-interactive frontent. I *would* like us to go futher, though.
I do think "do all prompting through debconf" should be a release goal for
sarge (and that anyone not interested into going through the pain of adding
such prompts, just remove them from the package and let the user config it
himself). But that's me.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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