Bug#30122: PROPOSED] Fix bad advice about conffile management
On 03-Dec-98, 06:48 (CST), Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Raul Miller wrote:
> > Steve Greenland <stevegr@debian.org> wrote:
> > > ==== New Version =========================================================
> > >
> > > If two or more packages use the same configuration file, one of
> > > these packages has to be defined as _owner_ of the configuration
> > > file, i.e., it has to list the file as `conffile'. The other
> > > packages have to depend on the owner package.
> >
> > I don't see that this is necessary if all these packages conflict.
>
> Unfortunately, it is. A conflict is satisfied if the conflicting package
> is removed; it does not have to be purged. So its conffiles can still be
> on the system. This is the one case where conflicting packages can have
> file overlaps.
But that seems to be ok. If foo and bar both use the same configuration
file, and I want to switch from foo to bar, then I don't necessarily
want to change my configuration. Of course that's assuming that the
configuration files are compatible...but if they aren't, why do
they have the same name? If two packages happen to have the same
configuration file just through happenstance, then the solution is not
to make them conflict, but to rename one of the files.
Steve
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