Re: Recovering /var (package status only)
on Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 12:22:47PM -0800, Osamu Aoki (osamu@debian.org) wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 10:00:28AM +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 01:03:00AM -0500, Travis Crump wrote:
> > > Question about false positives(/usr/share/doc/ directories that don't
> > > correspond to a package): Are they a bug or is there nothing wrong with
> > > them? On my system I have the following false positives:
> > >
> > > debian-reference-en, debian-reference-common: /usr/share/doc/Debian
> > > doc-linux-text: /usr/share/doc/FAQ
> > > doc-linux-text: /usr/share/doc/HOWTO
> > > doc-debian: /usr/share/doc/debian
> >
> > doc-linux-text and doc-debian are special cases, probably
> > debian-reference-* too. I tried to formalize the upper-case rule for
> > doc-linux-* on debian-policy in August 2000, but never got round to
> > following through on the approving noises I got in response.
>
> In DDP, we discussed to move all DDP document into /usr/share/doc/Debian
> just like HOWTO and others. It stand out when browsed by "mc" :)
I'd support this on an organizational basis. These aren't packages,
they're additional documentation concerning a specific topic. This
should also harmonize (evil in copyright, good in directory names) the
"lowercase is packages" association.
> organization but now we have very compelling argument for disaster
> recovery :)
I prefer to think of this as a validation of consistency, rather than a
feature which should be explicitly aimed for. There's a distinction.
Admins *shouldn't* be blowing away their /var partitions, and they
*should* be backing up critical system data, preferably with multiple
offsite backups. Yes, we know this isn't the case, but does Debian
policy need to accomodate poor practices?
>From a consistency viewpoint, however, it *does* become a useful audit
check to see if there are any non-package directories consisting of all
lowercase alpha characters in /usr/share/doc. The fortuitous
consequence that you now have a backup representation of package state
is useful. It's not an intentional result. Subtle but important point,
namely: if policy at some future point dictates that this arrangement
should change, then disrupting the "but you're destroying our backup
dpkg status state repository" argument holds no water.
Peace.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Geek for hire: http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html
Reply to: