Interpackage-use of debconf (Was: (not only) [custom]: (pre)configuring packages)

[Andreas Tille <tillea@rki.de>]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 p.carsten@arcor.de wrote:

> CFG is not intended to replace debconf (CFG does not save any state),
> however it may makes sense to let debconf use CFG to make changes to
> config files in the future. The functionallity is shared and
> ...
While reading this the following question comes me into mind:

   Would it me a good idea if a package A changes configuration of
   package B via debconf.

   For instance I want to package GnuMed which does require changes
   in postgresql configuration.  I'm currently doing this via the
   same mechanism as gforge.  But I wonder now if it would be
   missuse if I would use a template like

         Template: postgresql/gnumed-conf-option_a
         ...

   and configure/postinst scripts perform the necessary actions.
   So the question is: Is interpackage action of debconf OK or bad use?

Kind regards

        Andreas.