Raphael Hertzog wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2009, Jerome Warnier wrote:
For files from packages, though, deduplication might be a good idea, as
dpkg is supposedly the only one to ever modify the files (under /usr for
example).
I don't know however how dpkg treats hardlinks. Does it "break" the
hardlink before replacing a file or does it replace the file whatever
its real nature is?
IIRC dpkg preserves hardlinks inside a binary package but I don't see how
it could do the same across multiple binary packages.
Oh, I didn't expect it to. I just wanted to know its behaviour when it
upgrades a package.
Before the upgrade, the file is a hardlink (because I hardlinked it
manually), then it tries to upgrade the file/hardlink. Does it "break"
the hardlink* before upgrading the file or does it overwrite the
file/hardlink and all of its "siblings"?