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Re: [SOLVED] Re: old entries in sources.list



On Fri, Jun 20, 2025 at 08:58:58AM -0500, David Wright wrote:
> 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.

I've been ambiguous: "so by convention it would be a conffile"
was a very short form of "...if it were 'owned' by a package".
But it is not.

Of course you are right.

Cheers
-- 
t

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