Bug#62536: marked as done (purging timezones removes /etc/timezone, should not happen.)
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and subject line Bug#62536: purging timezones removes /etc/timezone, should not happen.
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Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 13:58:59 +0200 (CEST)
From: Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>
To: Debian Bugs <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: purging timezones removes /etc/timezone, should not happen.
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.1000417135622.10330A-100000@cantor.unex.es>
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Package: libc6
Version: 2.1.3-8
Severity: important
The timezones package does no longer exist. However, a user upgrading from
slink to potato will end up having a removed timezones package in which
the conffiles remain. This is bad, because the user will see it as an
obsolete package in dselect and will try to purge it completely.
when purging timezones, the file /etc/timezone will be lost.
Since this is a case of "data loss", I think it should be fixed before
the release.
I can think of several ways to deal with this:
1. Keep still libc6 and timezones as separate packages in potato, but
make /etc/timezone a "configuration file which is not a conffile" (as
it should always have been, like /etc/gpm.conf, for example). This way
upgrades from slink to potato will work, and upgrades from potato to
woody will work as well, because the removed timezones will no longer
contain the /etc/timezones file as a conffile and therefore may be
purged safely.
2. Modify libc6 so that it does only Conflicts the old timezones, but
not a new dummy one which is created for potato not containing the
/etc/timezone file inside.
3. libc6.postinst munges the dpkg database and zeroes both the .list
file and the .conffiles file for timezones. This would be a hack, but
I suppose it would work as well. It certainly will not work if the dpkg
databases changes format, but this will not happen in potato at least.
Thanks.
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Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 12:51:36 -0700
To: 62536-done@bugs.debian.org
From: Joel Klecker <jk@espy.org>
Subject: Re: Bug#62536: purging timezones removes /etc/timezone, should
not happen.
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At 13:58 +0200 2000-04-17, Santiago Vila wrote:
>The timezones package does no longer exist. However, a user upgrading from
>slink to potato will end up having a removed timezones package in which
>the conffiles remain. This is bad, because the user will see it as an
>obsolete package in dselect and will try to purge it completely.
>when purging timezones, the file /etc/timezone will be lost.
>
>Since this is a case of "data loss", I think it should be fixed before
>the release.
I disagree that it is data loss, I already take steps to protect the
/etc/localtime symlink from old packages, which is enough to recover the
system's timezone.
I have also now taught `tzconfig' to use this if necessary.
--
Joel Klecker (aka Espy) <URL:mailto:espy@debian.org>
Debian Package Maintainer for the GNU C Library.
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