Re: merged-/usr transition: debconf or not?

[Ansgar <ansgar@43-1.org>]

On Mon, 2021-11-22 at 12:24 +0000, Simon McVittie wrote:
> Options to make path A an alias for path B would be a lot like --path-
> exclude in that they really only make sense in a configuration file in
> /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d, although for symmetry they would presumably also
> have to exist as command-line options just like --path-exclude does.

I would expect using --path-exclude when installing individual packages
to work: you just don't get the files from that package. (I haven't
tried.)

Merged-/usr (or --path-alias as you propose) does not work like this:
Unlike --path-exclude, you would almost always need to specify a
superset of --path-alias options for all future operations.

So I do not think there should be a command-line option for this;
unless it would behave like `--add-architecture` and register the
setting somewhere.

>     # in /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/merged-usr
>     path-alias=/bin=usr/bin
>     path-alias=/lib32=usr/lib32
>     path-alias=/lib64=usr/lib64
>     path-alias=/lib=usr/lib
>     path-alias=/libo32=usr/libo32
>     path-alias=/libx32=usr/libx32
>     path-alias=/sbin=usr/sbin

I do not think this should be a configuration file (unless you suggest
supporting other values or removing individual lines; after all a
configuration file exists to be changed).

(Though we have various other settings that don't make sense as
configuration files in /etc, such as Debian's bugtracker and other
settings in /etc/dpkg/origins/debian, the version in
/etc/debian_version and so on.)

Ansgar