Re: problem with emacs configuration scripts
Hi Thomas,
I understand that this discussion belongs to debian-policy and that it would
be great to find a global solution. However, could you please also send
your future posts to debian-emacsen? We may find a local solution for the
emacsen init files, regardless of the final decision on debian-policy.
[BTW, I like your "callout" proposal.]
Thanks,
--
Rafael Laboissiere
On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 05:17:36PM -0400, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> writes:
>
> > Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > > Specifically, because the files are conffiles, they are not removed
> > > when the package is removed, and so the files stay around to continue
> > > to affect the behavior of emacs. This happened to me with the user-de
> > > and user-es packages, which I installed long ago, and long ago
> > > removed. But the scripts they install have a bug on current emacs20,
> > > and because the scripts are conffiles, they didn't get deleted.
> >
> > Look at how this is handled by packages that contain menu-methods files
> > for the menu package. They have the same basic problem: script conffiles that
> > are left around when the package is removed, and will not work. The
> > solution is this in the postrm:
> >
> > if [ "$1" = "remove" -a -f "$inst" ]; then
> > chmod a-x /etc/menu-methods/package
> > fi
> >
> > (And equivilant code in the postinst.)
> >
> > Menu recognizes that it should ignore non-executable files in that
> > directrory. I think that the emacsen packages should use a similar
> > method to allow the scripts to be disabled. Execute permissions might be
> > the wrong fix, but something along the same lines should work.
>
> That would work.
>
> I would like *something* specified so the packages which currently
> install emacs scripts as conffiles that persist can fix their
> behavior. One maintainer rudely said "this isn't a bug, nyaa nyaa";
> most wonder what the right thing is. So I'd like it if we could reach
> some closure quickly.
>
> > > I think we should specify that programs should not install conffiles
> > > which change the behavior of different packages
> >
> > That is an incredibly vague statement, and there are probably 100
> > different things in debian that violate it in perfectly sensible
> > behavior. (See above menu-methods example for one.)
>
> The menu-methods technique works fine, but I don't think it would
> violate my proposed policy addition. Perhaps a better way to say it
> is:
>
> "Packages which install conffiles should be careful that those
> conffiles do not continue to affect the behavior of other programs
> once the package has been removed. It should not be necessary to
> purge a package in order to prevent it from having an affect on other
> programs."
>
> menu-methods installers would meet this by changing the mode. Emacs
> scripts could do it by my "callout" suggestion or by having the emacs
> load code do something more clever than it does now.
>
> Thomas
>
--
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