Hi, * Simon Richter <sjr@debian.org> [2021-08-22 02:15]:
There are two issues here: dpkg not handling certain corner cases, and the usemerge package modifying the file system, bypassing dpkg.
Maybe this question has been answered elsewhere, but I keep
wondering: What prevents dpkg from updating/reparing its database
to match what usrmerge did? It's not like files got shifted around
arbitrarily.
The database rewrite would be irreversable, but switching back and
forth is not a required feature anyway. And the rewrite is
idempotent, so it might even be possible to run this unconditionally
as part of some future release upgrade.
Of course, dpkg would need a path canonicalization that
transparently maps /{bin,lib*,sbin} to /usr/{bin,lib*,sbin} on *all*
file operations and is enabled together with the database
conversion. This might take some effort to code, mostly because it
must be applied consistently. Still, it's best to have this done
right in dpkg once and for all, and I'm probably not the only one
who would be willing to help.
Cheers
Timo
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