On Fri, Jul 11, 2003 at 01:20:12AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > Given that the check is done before asking any question in the > postinst, if you do install all three of the packages, the first one > whose postinst runs shall ask the question, and create the file; > subsequently, the other packages won't ask the question, since the > file /etc/news/organization shall exist. So the user is only asked > once. > Now, if all these packages use debconf, and they all > preconfigure, then when the preconfiguration is run, the file does > not exist -- and thus all the packages in question shall query the > user -- bombarding the installer with multiple versions of the same > question, over and over again -- unless all the packages use the > same, shared, variable. > If there is to be a shared variable, what should the common > shared toplevel hierarchy be? I don't see all these packages (dist, > mailagent, Gnus, VM, and other packages) using a common (virtual) > package name; they are not even close to being similar types of > packages, and thus do not share a common purpose in general, only for > this variable. > The question then becomes: what is this shared variable > called? How does a package maintainer discover this variable? How are > updates to common templates made? Does some package "own" this shared > variable template? Which one? > Where is this central registry of shared variablenames, so > that the next package wanting to create /etc/news/organization can > use the same variable, and not ask the user yet another duplicate > question. I don't think there is a central registry. I do see a debconf value on my system named shared/organization; this seems to be a general-purpose "organization" value, but perhaps it could be used for the contents of /etc/news/organization as well? The "shared/" toplevel heirarchy seems to be popular for this sort of thing, at any rate; even related packages seem likely to use this when the question doesn't clearly belong to just one of them. As for owning the template: /all/ of the packages own the template (as shown by the Owners: field in /var/cache/debconf/config.dat), and must ship it; or there must be a common package that all others depend on which owns the question, if including it in multiple packages is seen as a duplication of effort. In the absence of strict package dependencies, though, each package that needs the answer must be prepared to ask for it separately. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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