Re: does /var/games have to be deleted on purge? (if it's empty..)
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Montag, 4. Januar 2010, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > * It's sometimes necessary to purge a package and reinstall it to
> > fix some weird problem, or if not necessary at least expedient.
> > For example, if one accidentally deletes a configuration file,
> > one of the faster ways to get the original configuration file
> > shipped with the package back is to purge and reinstall the
> > package. It saves unpacking the package somewhere and manually
> > copying out the configuration file.
For this, you actually should be using --force-confmiss.
> Basically see my answers to previous two arguments. IMHO purging
> should do what it's designed to do.
This entire discussion is about what purging should be designed to do.
There are lots of examples of data which is has significant user
contribution but is coupled to varying degrees to a package (or even
multiple packages).
Consider data in /var/www, for example, or collections of mysql
databases created by versions of mysql which have been partially
replaced by subsequent versions of mysql. Or ldap databases which were
created by openldap, but are now being used by some other ldap
replacement (or some custom scripts).
Purge should clean up detrius, but there is always a balance between
completely cleaning out the detrius and destroying user data which may
be wanted.
Don Armstrong
--
Everyone has to die. And in a hundred years nobody's going to inquire
just how most people died. The best thing is to do it in the way that
strikes your fancy most.
-- Kenzaburō Ōe _Silent Cry_ p5
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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