Bug#58859: please improve reported meta-errors
Control: clone -1 -2
Control: reassign -1 dpkg
Control: retitle -1 dpkg: please improve reported meta-errors
Control: tag -1 - wontfix
Control: reassign -2 apt
Control: retitle -2 apt: please improve reported meta-errors
Splitting the bug report, because bugs assigned to multiple packages
are suboptimal to deal with, and only removing the wontfix for dpkg
because I don't know how the apt team might want to deal with this.
On Wed, 2000-02-23 at 19:41:53 -0800, Robert Woodcock wrote:
> Both dpkg and apt print out meta-errors, i.e. reports of other errors.
> Users paste these into channels regularly, and although they do a good job
> of letting the user know that it's not working, they don't tell them how to
> fix it. (make is the worst offender - make: *** [install] Error 1 gets
> pasted more places...)
>
> Neither dpkg nor apt actually tell you what to do to fix a problem like this
> (besides wait until some developer fixes the package). They have to consult
> a Debian Expert(tm) who has to pry info from them like which script was
> failing, then said Debian Expert(tm) has to refer them to
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/packagename.scriptname (scriptname doesn't directly
> correlate with dpkg's error messages either!), and only *then* can work
> start on determining what the problem really was (this can be three emails
> into a bug report, if the user chose that route), and by this time a newbie
> can really start hating Debian.
>
> Addressing this issue will improve the quality of a significant percentage
> of bug reports.
>
> <SuperPhly> anyone ahve any clue...
> <SuperPhly> dpkg: error processing xdm (--configure):
> <SuperPhly> subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
> > superphly: did it print out an error *above* that?
I agree the messages should be improved, and I'll do so for 1.17.2.
But adding the absolute path for the failing maint script does not
help much, instead I'll add a longer description of what are the
possible correct steps to perform after such errors.
Thanks,
Guillem
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