Re: Many executables across Debian's archives share basenames
On Thu, Oct 05, 2017 at 01:32:47PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Thu, 05 Oct 2017, Kamil Cholewiński wrote:
> > I wrote a short script that calls "apt-file find 'bin/'", filters
> > results to include only stuff from /bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin, and
> > looks for basename clashes. Turns out, in Stretch, there are 97 hits.
> > (If you also include /usr/games, 126.)
>
> > (Of couse, I'm counting all packages, regardless of whether they specify
> > "Conflicts:" or not, and regardless of whether the full name is shared,
> > or just the basename.)
> >
> > For example, packages "389-ds-base" and "dmucs", both provie a command
> > called "monitor". The former's command is located in /usr/sbin, the
> > latter's in /usr/bin. Neither package conflicts with the other.
>
> This is sounds like a bug in both packages; monitor is way too generic
> to be a name.
Another one is "import" - should simply NEVER be a program name -
should be reserved.
man page: import - saves any visible window on an X server and
outputs it as an image file. You can capture a single window, the
entire screen, or any rectangular portion of the screen
git does it sensibly (in the last few years) with a primary basename
and sub commands.
Many of these packages (especially old X stuff) “should” migrate to
the command/subcommand way of life.
I know, I know, show me the patches...
> Everything under point 1 sounds like a bug, and probably needs a
> mass-bug filing (but that should be discussed on
> debian-devel@lists.debian.org, not here.)
>
> > 2. (I know this is crazy, unsupported, violates FHS, kills kittens, and
> > I'm actually Asking For Trouble by doing this, but whatever.) I can't
> > safely symlink /sbin to /bin, and I can't do a /usr -> / either.
>
> Part of the goal for this is being tracked in
> https://wiki.debian.org/UsrMerge, and is a release goal (and the
> default).
>
> There should only be a few packages with outstanding bugs in this case:
>
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?tag=usrmerge;users=md@linux.it
>
> In theory, you should be able to install usrmerge, and things should
> "just work™".
New for me. Thanks.
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