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Re: Postponing postinst stuff for later execution



On Sat, Jul 23, 2005 at 01:32:58AM +0200, Florent Rougon wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Julian Gilbey <jdg@polya.uklinux.net> wrote:
> 
> > There are plans afoot to provide this functionality in dpkg.  The
> > problem with the zope solution is that if apt isn't used, the
> > postponed actions won't be run.
> 
> This is indeed a problem, but there is a more serious one, IMHO, which
> is why I have always been reluctant to even think about this issue.
> 
> Basically, this approach will cause some TeX packages to be really
> configured not when dpkg configures them, but later (when updmap & Co
> are run). Otherwise, nothing is gained compared to the current
> situation.
> 
> But this breaks Debian Policy quite clearly. Suppose package B depends
> on TeX package A to build some documentation in PDF format in
> B.postinst. Policy says that B can simply Depend on A and it will be
> safe: A is guaranteed to be configured before B.postinst is run. But if
> A is really configured (update-updmap, mktexlsr, updmap, whatever)
> *after* B, B.postinst will fail.
> 
> How do you solve that (without changes to dpkg)?

That's a really good question which I hadn't thought about.  Probably
worth bringing up on the dpkg development list.

   Julian



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