Re: Another job for the QA team
> On Tue, Apr 13, 1999 at 11:32:40AM +0100, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> > In my new version of the fvwm package (2.2-x), there have been radical
> > changes. The postinst will do its best not to irrevocably retrieve
> > the information it expects to currently be present, but it warns the
> > installer that certain information may be lost, thus giving them a
> > chance to rescue it first. I do not think that this is an
> > unreasonable query, but better ways of handling it are always welcome.
>
> I'd qualify this as an important info, and if doing something else would
> cause harm (and release-critical bug reports ;), then do leave the pause.
>
> However, it'd be nice if you would just leave the old stuff in place
> and add new stuff. Or move all old stuff to a backup location, replace
> with the new stuff, check integrity, and (depending on the result) then
> revert or delete backup.
Hmm. As it stands, the old version used the directory /etc/X11/fvwm2
and the new version /etc/X11/fvwm. I back up all of the files from
/etc/X11/fvwm2, but don't bother about subdirectories, which are not
expected to be present anyhow. But to be on the safe side, I warn
about this. I do not wish to leave the old directory around, as this
will lead to people becoming confused by the presence of two config
directories. Then again, I could just bodily move the old config
directory into an 'old.fvwm2' subdirectory of /etc/X11/fvwm, which may
be much better. Then one fewer setup question -- hurray! I'll try to
remember to do that next week.
> > A more questionable example: "Should I make this the default window
> > manager?" We could always do so be default, but since the sysadmin
> > may have already chosed the default window manager, they may not like
> > this behaviour.
>
> This is a tricky one. One could assume that if you selected a window
> manager, you want to use it, but whether it is default... I don't know.
> I can't wait for debian-admintool to resolve this, by asking the question
> somewhere in the installation procedure.
Well, I could always just not ask the question and allow the sysadmin
to run register-window-manager --default after the installation is
complete, should they wish to do so.
> > And of course, dpkg asks questions when trying to upgrade modified
> > conffiles.
>
> I think this is a good thing. It is one of the purposes of marking files
> as conffiles, so that they don't get overwritten automatically during
> upgrades. It may seem ugly/annoying, but is very useful.
Of course it's good -- I'm just pointing out that not all questions
are irrelevant or unimportant or unnecessary.
> > So we're left with purposeless questions: "Do you realise that this
> > package has been upgraded? You must see the README! Press enter to
> > continue...." Of course the package is being upgraded!
>
> :) That is why we all have to cooperate more with the FAQ and Release
> Notes maintainers, so that all these 'upgraded-package-prepare-for-doom'
> announcements get in the place where people are supposed to read them.
Maybe we should have an announcement near to release about the Release
Notes and these requirements.
Julian
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk
Debian GNU/Linux Developer. jdg@debian.org
-*- Finger jdg@master.debian.org for my PGP public key. -*-
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