Re: Help/Question: Can't get xlibs package to install all of it's files

["Kevin B. McCarty" <kmccarty@Princeton.EDU>]

Lance Rushing wrote:

> I'm trying to get /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/altwin (an other files) to install
> from the xlibs package.  If I:
> 
> # dpkg --contents xlibs_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14_all.deb
> 
> I get of list of the contents and it shows the files I am interested in.
> But if I:
> 
> # dpkg --install xlibs_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14_all.deb
> 
> the files don't get installed.   I've extracted the files and the controls
> from this package to check if there is a preinst script or something.  But
> there are none. The only control files are: 'conffiles', 'list', and
> 'md5sums'.

Hi Lance,

This is probably because most files under /etc are "conffiles", and dpkg
will not install a missing conffile by default if you reinstall an
already-existing package.  (It assumes that if you previously deleted
the conffile, you must have done it for a good reason.)

The --force-confmiss option to dpkg will probably do what you want:

dpkg --force-confmiss --install xlibs_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14_all.deb

regards,

-- 
Kevin B. McCarty <kmccarty@princeton.edu>   Physics Department
WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/    Princeton University
GPG: public key ID 4F83C751                 Princeton, NJ 08544