Hello Aurelien, Aurelien Jarno [2016-04-27 11:13 +0200]: > Unfortunately it seems a lot of software are actually using > /etc/timezone to configure the time zone. When switching to a symlink > this made people unhappy, see for example bug#813226. This bug points to > the following query: > > https://github.com/search?q=%2Fetc%2Ftimezone+dpkg-reconfigure+noninteractive+tzdata&type=Code&utf8=%E2%9C%93 Interesting, thanks for that link. It seems the majority is writing that file for a subsequent dpkg-reconfigure, but I've seen a few reads as well. It seems over time a lot of software out there has adopted this Debianism. Wrt. to #813226, I admittedly don't understand why /etc/localtime being a file or symlink is in any way related to which of /etc/localtime vs. /etc/timezone should have priority over the other on reconfiguration. I mean, the *.config scripts surely may treat them differently, but that's just an implementation detail, not a conceptual/design problem? Software (both tzdata itself and also other things reading/changing it) needs to get along with /etc/localtime being a symlink either way, even before tzdata 2016a-1. > What we can probably do is to stop looking or creating /etc/timezone > if it doesn't exist, but keep updating it if it exists. What do you > think? That might be cleaner in situations where someone explicitly removes it, but a lot less useful to avoid the redundancy problem. Anyway, it seems to me that this is too deeply entrenched in the software world by now, so I figure is is a case for 'wontfix' and just closing this report? Thanks! Martin -- Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)
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