Re: [Help] Transition "Link in /usr/doc/"
On Tue, Jul 18, 2006 at 11:50:22AM +0200, Amaya wrote:
> Hi there, Stefan
>
> Stefan Huehner wrote:
> > i think lintian has a check for this issue. Please look into [1] if
> > this is what you need.
> > http://lintian.debian.org/reports/Tpostinst-should-not-set-usr-doc-link.html
>
> Great pointer.
>
> I guess what I also really need is to find out what packages had this
> "ln -s" in the postinst in the past, because if they are not handling
> the link removal upon upgrade, then users will have that link there
> forever, but it will go unnoticed, as no link is created, in new
> instalations of the package.
Agreed; It is my understanding that it is wrong to put such
functionality in the {pre,post}rm scripts, because then the /usr/doc/
link will exist (minimally) until the package is removed or upgraded
(all 4 scripts are called at some point during a successful upgrade).
postinst is a nice place to put it, since you don't need to check the
arguments ($1) (same for prerm, but not for this problem).
Lots of packages do this in the *rm scripts though; there are also
some that do it in preinst (which is only bad since the argument
checking is less simple). All the preinst ones I have installed on my
machine looked fine, with the possible exception of "time".
This is a problem for people who run "stable" only, and never run any
intermediate "testing" version; they will end up running etch with
/usr/doc nonempty, so etch+1 removal of /usr/doc will fail, since 1)
the package may not actually be updated between etch and etch+1 (thus
will never have its *rm run), and 2) updated packages maybe be
available in the new distribution, but may not be upgraded earlier in
the dpkg run than whatever package removes/rewrites /usr/doc (unless
there are plans for another pre-dependency) (assuming I have my target
distributions right for this goal).
Justin
grep -lr usr/doc /var/lib/dpkg/info/ | grep rm$
/var/lib/dpkg/info/bsdutils.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/biff.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/mount.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/klogd.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/sysklogd.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/debian-policy.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libbz2-1.0.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/bzip2.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libaudio2.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/flex.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/less.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/mime-support.prerm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/util-linux-locales.prerm
[...]
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