Bug#504880: Disambiguate "installed" for packages
On Sun, 09 Nov 2008, Colin Watson wrote:
> > > There is also:
> > > The `Depends' field should also be used if the `postinst',
> > > `prerm' or `postrm' scripts require the package to be present in
> > > order to run. Note, however, that the `postrm' cannot rely on
> > > any non-essential packages to be present during the `purge'
> > > phase.
> >
> > Ack to change s/present/unpacked/g here too.
>
> I think this would be somewhat confusing. I know that the statement is
> strictly logically correct with "unpacked", but it seems as though it
> would imply to many readers that the package is *only* unpacked, not
> also configured. In the absence of dependency loops, Depends should
> guarantee that the depended-upon package is configured rather than
> merely unpacked while the depending package's postinst runs; I'm not
> sure about prerm and postrm.
It's true for the postinst/postrm (except purge) but not for the prerm
upgrade (AFAIK) and we have recently been bitten by this distinction while
discussing problems related to the perl 5.10 upgrade.
> I feel that this may be too fine a distinction to draw in this paragraph
> without being confusing, and it would be better left non-specific.
Or maybe we should reword it to be more specific. Ccing Ian Jackson to have his
input here.
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog
Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch :
http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/
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