Bug#40706: AMENDMENT 17/7/99] /usr/share/doc vs. /usr/doc transition
Hi,
On Mon, Jul 19, 1999 at 11:23:59PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> >>"Santiago" == Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:
>
> Santiago> This is a high price to pay, very high.
>
> Adding a stanza to a couple of files too high a price to pay?
The price is actually higher. Richard already pointed out some corrections
to your proposal, which add complication.
But the real expense is elsewhere. I wonder why this hasn't come up before,
but here it is:
1. A lot of packages currently need no postinst or prerm(postrm, depends if
you use Manojs proposal or Richards correction) script currently, and we
would need to add one _only_ for this transition.
2. The prerm/postrm script must never go again, because we handle smooth
upgrades even if you jump a version number. Otherwise, you will end up with
a crufty symlink.
So, the price is:
a. A lot of work to add some stanzas to two scripts, probably creating these
scripts if they don't exist.
b. A few hundreds additional install scripts, one or two for each package
that exists for the transition period and up to one for each package
afterwards. Of course, _new_ packages after the transition period don't need
those script snippets.
Let's calculate some numbers:
ulysses:~# ls /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.list|wc
655 655 22488
ulysses:~# ls /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.postinst|wc
446 446 17518
ulysses:~# ls /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.prerm|wc
169 169 6139
ulysses:~# ls /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.postrm|wc
231 231 8336
Let's extrapolate the numbers for the whole Debian archive
(main+contrib+non-free), ~3000 packages.
That means, ~1000 new postinst scripts that were not necessary before in the
transition period.
~2000 new prerm/postrm scripts that must never go, even after the
transition period.
Personally, I think this is overkill for this particular problem. There
exists little system interfaces that make use of /usr/doc (dwww and dhelp
are notable exceptions). "Get real", I mean, it's cool that we have such a
cool packaging system that allows such smooth upgrades, but I think we
should concentrate on more important issues. Also, we should pay a bit
attention to the ressources. Adding those symlinks will use up ~600 more
inodes (if you have a 1GB system like me) and (200+400)*4kb = 2.4 MB more
disk space in /var/lib/dpkg/info/.
A little script that creates symlinks in /usr/doc for each directory in
/usr/share/doc was already posted, we could advertise it to our users who
really want that.
The above calculation tells me that the cost is higher than the benefit.
Hence, I formaly object to this proposal.
Thanks,
Marcus
--
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