Re: Integrating local changes

[Guy Maor <maor@ece.utexas.edu>]

On Fri, 1 Mar 1996, Michael Shields wrote:

> At 04:20 1996-03-01, Guy Maor wrote:
> >Let's say you want to replace the standard login from miscutils with
> >your own that uses skey.
> >
> >1. Make a package called skeylogin.deb with your login program.
> >2. Install it.
> >3. Set up a diversion so new versions of miscutils install login to
> >   plainlogin.
> >
> >Now you can freely upgrade miscutils and skeylogin.  dpkg rocks!
> 
> Won't work.  dpkg-diversions.txt says:
> 
>     No package should contain a file whose name is the diverted name of
>     another file;

You've misinterpreted this sentence.  The diverted name of a package is
the "to" name, not the "from" name.  Of course it doesn't make sense
for another package to provide the "to" name.  That's why dpkg won't
ket you do it.

One point I didn't mention (again from dpkg-diversions.text):

  There's provision for a single package to be named which is allowed to
  provide a version of the file which will installed under the original
  name.

Take a look at example 2 in that file.  It's exactly what you want to
do.

Guy