Re: [SOLVED] Re: old entries in sources.list
On Fri 20 Jun 2025 at 08:28:11 (+0200), tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 19, 2025 at 05:40:24PM -0400, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > It might be worth mentioning that if the package owns sources.list,
> > then you should not edit it. You should allow the package maintainer
> > to edit or replace sources.list. Place your changes in
> > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/.
>
> tomas@caliban:~$ dpkg -S /etc/apt/sources.list
> dpkg-query: no path found matching pattern /etc/apt/sources.list
>
> It seems no package "owns" sources.list. Besides, it's in /etc, so by
> convention it would be a conffile [1], i.e. Debian expects the sysadmin
> to change things and copes with it.
I don't think that's correct. The term "conffiles" applies to the
files listed in a package's DEBIAN/conffiles, with their md5sums
recorded in /var/lib/dpkg/info/<package>.list. When they've been
modified, upgrading the package gives you a dialogue:
Configuration file '<CONFFILE>'
==> Modified (by you or by a script) since installation.
==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version.
What would you like to do about it ? Your options are:
Y or I : install the package maintainer's version
N or O : keep your currently-installed version
D : show the differences between the versions
Z : start a shell to examine the situation
The default action is to keep your current version.
*** <CONFFILE> (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? y
Installing new version of config file <CONFFILE> ...
So sources.list is a configuration file, but not a conffile.
Cheers,
David.
Reply to: