Re: purging: what should be deleted ? (fwd)

[Will Lowe <harpo@UDel.Edu>]

> > You've got to be careful how you phrase that -- it could cause some pretty
> > serious problems if / isn't explicitly owned by some package, for example. 
> > Otherwise, I agree. Debian claims jurisdiction over everything except
> > /opt, /usr/local, and /home ... 
<snip>
> Hrmm -- hehe -- pretty good point.  Perhaps if dpkg were somewhat intelligent
> and could remove <file> and <file>~ and <file>.bup or something -- common
> backup modifications -- that would be best.

Actually,  one simple way to do this would be to have a debian virtual
package (yeah,  I know these are frowned upon) which owns them.  Or
assign them to package in the <base> section.

try "dpkg -S /" ... on my system,  this isn't owned by any package.
even more interesting to try "dpkg -S /etc" ... about 40 packages claim to
own the /etc directory. :)

One other reason that packages probably _should_ remove any directories
they own on purge:  some of those directories are owned by a user
installed by the package.  When the user is removed by the postrm script,
those directories are owned by some invalid UID. ...

                     					Will


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