Re: some doubts

[John Hasler <john@dhh.gt.org>]

Mario Olimpio de Menezes writes:
> I think that such behavior shouldn't be a feature. If some essential file
> is missing, the installation program should, at least, warn the
> administrator. This happened when, for example, installing a new version
> of login. My login.{defs,access} were rm'ed (a mistake) and the new
> installed package didn't supply new copies of these files.

When you install a new version of a package dpkg checks the md5sums of the
conffiles to see if you have made any changes.  If you have, it leaves the
files alone, preserving your changes.  In your case it took the absence of
the files as deliberate (it should have created login.{defs,access}.dist).

To get the behavior you want you should first purge the old package.  This
removes all traces of the old package so that when you install the new one
dpkg doesn't see anything it thinks it needs to preserve.
-- 
John Hasler                This posting is in the public domain.
john@dhh.gt.org		   Do with it what you will.
Dancing Horse Hill         Make money from it if you can; I don't mind.
Elmwood, Wisconsin         Do not send email advertisements to this address.