Re: debconf, controlling terminal, and calling dialog "manually" from postinst
On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 05:09:32PM +0100, Frank K?ster wrote:
> Is there any clear and definitive description of how debconf handles and
> releases file descriptors and the controling terminal (besided the code
> itself)? I found quite some remarks that debconf "can cause all sorts
> of trouble" or the like. But I'd like to know exactly...
>
> The reason is #232725. We were calling a program in postinst - after
> using debconf and without calling db_stop - that wanted to display its
> error messages via dialog, but the dialog never was shown, so Ctrl-c was
> the only way out. I've fixed it (in CVS) by simply not calling that
> program, but I would like to understand.
I would recommend against using such a program (unmodified) in a maintainer
script. A tty may not even be available for running dialog, and interactive
programs tend to misbehave in that situation.
--
- mdz
Reply to: