Re: Rationale for /etc/init.d/* being conffiles?
On Fri, 19 Dec 1997, Adrian Bridgett wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 19, 1997 at 01:56:35PM -0500, Scott Ellis wrote:
> > On Fri, 19 Dec 1997, Santiago Vila wrote:
>
> [snip policy]
> > >
> > > Could somebody please explain the rationale for having *all*
> > > /etc/init.d/* scripts as conffiles?
>
> [snip]
>
> > You can deactivate OR CHANGE THE BEHAVIOR of the program by modifying the
> > script. If it isn't a conffile, this will break every time the package is
> > upgraded (I frequently tweak the behavior of the init.d scripts). I know
> > I'd get seriously annoyed if my changes were suddenly overridden. The
> > only inconvenience there is the occasional prompting about a file I've
> > changed being updated. I far prefer that small warning to having programs
> > change behavior under my nose. You only got the warning because a package
> > was changed to conform to policy and added a conffile that wasn't there.
> > For the most part, dpkg does a good job of not bothering you about files
> > that you haven't changed or which haven't changed upstream.
>
> What about "dpkg-divert"? Sure - some people do edit /etc/init.d/whatever
> (particularly "network"), however there are many files in /etc/init.d that
> the vast majority of people won't change. If some behaviour needs to change,
> they may not install the new version (I normally say "N" to replace
> conffiles and then go through manually to see what's changed). On my
> system, there are more than fifty scripts in init.d, I've changed one.
"The vast majority of people" and "everyone" are two different beasts.
May I ask why you want to BREAK MY CURRENT SETUP? It works, it doesn't
need changing. I don't want to use dpkg-divert, many people don't
understand it fully (I don't, but I haven't needed to use it. I trust I
could figure it out easy enough). The current system WORKS under the
principal of least suprise. Having to specifically register a file I've
changed doesn't. And stopping these files from being conffiles will step
on anyone who has assumed their changes are safe because they are
conffiles.
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