Re: Question about get-selections

[Paul E Condon <pecondon@mesanetworks.net>]

On 2009-03-27_11:19:29, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> On Thu,26.Mar.09, 19:08:32, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
>  
> > I wouldn't put my backup info in /etc/apt.  Most of what is in /etc/
> > (just like the rest of the file system) is managed by packages which are
> > managed by apt.  You may find that what you put in /etc/apt gets changed
> > (I don't know, but I wouldn't risk it).
>  
> I doubt that. It would be a *serious* bug to do it! You could test it 
> like this:
> 
> - install a package with it's own config directory in /etc
> - create an arbitrary file in that directory
> - *purge* the package
> 
> now dpkg will delete all files it knows about, but will *not* delete the 
> directory and will issue a warning that it is not empty and couldn't be 
> deleted. (This is all from memory, there might be minor differences).
> 
> > I keep my backups in /var/local/backup.
> 
> Whereas /var is more likely to be affected (though I doubt any package 
> would have a reason to touch /var/local/backup).
> 
> Back to the OP's question, I keep my 'aptitude !~M~i' list in ~/bak 
> especially since /home is backed up anyway ;)
> 
> Regards,
> Andrei

Andrei,

Also, the package that supervises the contents of /etc/apt/ is, I
think, dpkg. I'm not sure, but whatever it is, if I were to purge the
package that does put config files in /etc/apt/ - - - Wouldn't
recovery from that error be far more costly than merely the loss of my
goofy little selections list? Packages as important as the one in 
question do not 'automatically' get purged, I think.

I see you have a different search string than has been mentioned before.
Is yours really what you use, or something typed from memory? The ones
I have tried didn't seem to give correct results.

In my original thinking, I was mentioning /etc/apt/, because I presumed
it was a safe place to leave such information. I'm sure there is such a
safe place, somewhere. You use ~/bak, which I might imitate, now that I 
am aware of it, even if /etc/apt/ is also a safe place. 

Now, the discussion has moved to how to query the packaging system to 
get the most useful file of information. I'm still not sure what the
query string should be.

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@mesanetworks.net