Bug#218516: linux-kernel-headers: Check for symbolic link before installing

[Daniel Jacobowitz <dan@debian.org>]

On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 10:22:14PM +0100, Eric Valette wrote:
> Package: linux-kernel-headers
> Version: 2.5.999-test7-bk-5
> Severity: normal
> 
> To compile some apps, I add to use recent kernel headers and 
> thus linked by hand asm,scsi,linux using symbolic links directly 
> to the real linux includes. Installing the linux-kernel-headers 
> packages screwed my real kernel includes.
> 
> As I know many people do this to get accurate API/constant (even if its 
> arguably a mistake).

It's not just arguably a mistake, it's terrible abuse of the Debian
package manager.  DO NOT overwrite something owned by a package without
using dpkg-divert.  Dpkg can't protect users from themselves.

> I think testing for symblic link and removing them is easy in 
> preinst and could save a lot of problems...

You'll need to investigate more.  From the linux-kernel-headers preinst:

# Old versions of glibc installed these symlinks.  Remove them
# if they exist.
if [ -L /usr/include/asm ] ; then rm -f /usr/include/asm ; fi
if [ -L /usr/include/linux ] ; then rm -f /usr/include/linux ; fi
if [ -L /usr/include/scsi ] ; then rm -f /usr/include/scsi ; fi

Did that not happen?

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
MontaVista Software                         Debian GNU/Linux Developer