Re: Bug#27433: [PROPOSAL]: ldconfig in postinst
[BTW, should I CC both the BTS *and* debian-policy?]
Charles Briscoe-Smith <cpbs@debian.org> writes:
> As specified in policy, packages with shared libs generally run "ldconfig"
> from "postinst configure".
Actually, you're wrong, that's from the Packaging Manual, not the
Policy Manual.
> Thus, I'd like to suggest that packages containing shared libraries
> should use "ldconfig -n <dir>" in order to limit the number of useless
> warnings the user sees; ISTR that policy already says to limit the output
> from maintainer scripts to that which is absolutely necessary.
>
> A possible problem: how recently was -n first supported by ldconfig?
> If less that a couple of years, it might be better to avoid this.
>
> I suggest the following wpatch[1] to the policy manual:
>
> 2.3.8 Maintainer scripts
>
> The package installation scripts should avoid producing output which
> it is unnecessary for the user to see and should rely on dpkg to
> stave off boredom on the part of a user installing many packages. This
> means, amongst other things, using the --quiet option on install-info.
> {+Because the libc5-to-libc6 transition will have left some machines
> with ld.so.conf entries for directories which no longer exist,
> this also means using the -n option on ldconfig to specify a single
> directory to update, and thus avoid some harmless warnings (this also
> speeds up processing slightly).+}
I feel this is too much of a nit to put in the Policy Manual. I
think, instead, you should maybe submit a patch to the Packaging
Manual suggesting that one runs ldconfig with the '-n' or using the
exact library paths (not really the most portable way to write your
'debian/rules' files, but...).
It would also follow that this bug should be reassigned to
packaging-manual.
.....A. P. Harris...apharris@onShore.com...<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>
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