"Henrique de Moraes Holschuh" <hmh@debian.org> wrote in message 20050909200859.GA792@khazad-dum.debian.net">news:20050909200859.GA792@khazad-dum.debian.net...
The proper way to activate the package *IS* by changing inittab. Only init should ever load the program n question because of what the program does. Nobody in there right mind would run getty by hand except for debuging. This is exactly the same. Basically getty and qingy create consoles on (virtual) terminals. That is the job of init. The proper way to tell init which console creator to use is via /etc/inittab.On Fri, 09 Sep 2005, Eddy Petri?or wrote:The application I want to package, qingy, is in fact a replacement for getty and it needs to modify /etc/inittab.Don't. /etc/inittab is critical infrastructure on every system where it is used, NEVER EVER touch it. Document what the user has to do to activate the package, instead, and let him activate it where he wants, the way he wants.
The simple fact though is that as things are you may not edit /etc/inittabThe only way a package may change *any* configuration file is through a well-defined interface, and if it is marked as a conf-file, then even that appears to be disallowed by policy.
Since there is no interface you must instruct the user to edit the file by hand. That is all policy allows. If you wish you can file a wishlist bug against sysvinit.