Packages leaving obsolete init.d scripts behind

[Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>]

While working on dependency based boot sequencing, I came across
obsolete init.d scripts that contained bad or incorrect dependency
information.  The scripts used to be part of a package, but has been
removed.  But because the package did not include code to properly
remove the conffile, the init.d script was left behind.  Here are some
examples from my sid chroot:

  % dpkg-query -W -f='${Conffiles}\n' | grep /etc/init.d | grep obsolete
   /etc/init.d/loadcpufreq 5cf8c5572d789beaf18d79fc52f95665 obsolete
   /etc/init.d/discover 14e9395f8e9e02697ed829530a6c8c87 obsolete
   /etc/init.d/makedev 6db71bb7f1c016cadf07b947e2c0c943 obsolete
   /etc/init.d/mplayer a6c67e6132f7b9be6fd1b1d19b76946f obsolete
   /etc/init.d/pcmcia f53890eb3d87d18693b5b76f553daece obsolete
   /etc/init.d/sudo 3ea7480674a8288c36fbac9ef3b26632 obsolete
  %

All of these are left behind because of bugs in packages.  I urge
every package maintainer to have a look at
<URL:http://wiki.debian.org/DpkgConffileHandling>, and make sure to
remove conffiles properly when they are dropped from a package.

Happy hacking,
-- 
Petter Reinholdtsen