Re: policy violation and bug reports.
> > No, I think Manoj's original suggestion was better. Handle high score
> > files from {post,pre}{inst,rm}. Do not tag as a conf file. Leave in /
> > var/games.
> Just to reiterate my objections:
> 1. Have to handle score files which change format.
Maintainer scripts are invoked with version info passed as argument. You
may check that info and do whatever is reasonabble. Even convert them to a
new format without loosing the data!
> 2. Have to handle score files that come with some scores already in them,
> for you to try to beat. (Ie, Maelstrom's score file)
Hum.. don't know... You can always check if the file was modified and
replace it... (sort of manual conffile handling).
> 3. We already have a mechanism for doing this (conffiles). Why re-implement
> it on a package by package basis?
I think that conffiles should be files that the user can edit. If the file
is a binary file, something internal to the package, it should be handled
automatically... the current conffile prompt doesn't suit to those files.
> 4. Thse are variable data files, and the fsstnd says the place for them is
> /var, not /etc.
Agreed.
> > The dosemu hdimage is a really good case for testing policy. I think
> > it's a fringe case.
> Yes, I agree. Another one that comes to mind is lambdamoo's database. This
> starts out at about 2 mb, and can grow to any size (I think large moo's like
> lambdamoo have lambdacore files in the hundreds of megabytes). It's
> currently a conffiles, in /var. Not ideal, as like the dosemu hdimage file,
> you rarely want to overwrite it with a new upstream version.
I don't think it hould be a conffile. I think is a personal (or system)
data file, like a Word document.. =) I think that it should be handled by
postinst. Again, the dpkg prompt tells the user that HE (or a script) has
modified a conffile, it appears to be an unusual condition to him. I don't
think HE should be faced to the modification of files he hasn't personally
done, and file that will never modified by him...
> > I don't think we should worry *too* much about increasing /etc, so long
> > as we don't do anything too nutty. And putting big hdimage files under
> > /etc qualifies as "nutty" in my book, though I doubt the Policy can
> > define "nutty" with any high degree of accuracy ;)
>
> I agree, and I think putting the lambdacore files under /etc is even more
> nutty. So, what to do?
Keep the distributed file and the modified version.
/usr/lib/lambdamoo/lambdamoo.db
and do a:
test -e /var/lib/lambdamoo/lambdamoo.db|| cp /var/lib/lambdamoo/lambdamoo.db /usr/lib/lambdamoo/lambdamoo.db
in postinst..
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