Bug#420393: tetex-bin: Configuration file handling is fragile

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl> wrote:

> Over the past week I've learned that local admins are allowed to remove 
> TeX-related configuration files in /etc/texmf/ and that therefore tetex 
> and texlive packages do not install "missing" configuration files on 
> upgrades.

This is nothing TeX-specific, it's just Debian policy.  Any package
which restores removed configuration files is buggy, or it should have
prompted the user if it cannot be configured without the file.

> When I corrected this by installing libkpathsea, I noticed this message:
>    Setting up tetex-bin (3.0-30) ...
>    Not replacing deleted config file /etc/texmf/fmt.d/01tetex.cnf
>
> Apparently the configuration script decided that this was an upgrade 
> instead of a new install, which is not correct. I installed tetex-bin 
> from scratch, so the config file _should_ have been installed, even if 
> configuring the package failed at first.

This looks like a bug, indeed.  

Regards, Frank
-- 
Dr. Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)