Package: base-files
Version: 5.1
Severity: wishlist
Short version:
I wish that on upgrade base-files would check if
/usr/share/base-files/profile and /etc/profile differ and warn the
user if he/she might need to manually upgrade the file.
The rationale here is that people expect to get the same set of bugs
regardless of whether they do a fresh installation or upgrade an old
one.
Longer version:
A group of new openmoko users were complaining that their PATH was
wrong and pasting error messages such as
dpkg: warning: 'ldconfig' not found on PATH
I was puzzled, we compared package version numbers and md5sums of
conffiles and everything looked identical. How could people who did a
fresh installation see different set of bugs than I who upgraded from
an old installation? After a few days I noticed
base-files (3.1.1) unstable; urgency=low
* The file /etc/profile is not a conffile anymore. Instead, it is created
by postinst in the very first base-files install, made by debootstrap.
* Accordingly, removed bash from Replaces field.
-- Santiago Vila <[email protected]> Tue, 14 Dec 2004 19:06:00 +0100
which explains the issue.
I understand that showing a warning during configure might sound
noisy. If that is the case please at least consider mentioning this in
README.Debian with for example something like:
"Please note that this package installs some files only when the
package is first installed but does not upgrade them even if the
package is upgraded. These files (and their original versions) are:
/usr/share/base-files/nsswitch.conf /etc/nsswitch.conf
/usr/share/base-files/dot.profile /root/.profile
/usr/share/base-files/dot.bashrc /root/.bashrc
/usr/share/base-files/profile /etc/profile
/usr/share/base-files/motd /etc/motd
If your debian installation is more than a few releases old you might
want to sync these files manually from time to time."
-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: armel (armv4tl)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.29-GTA02_lindi2-andy-tracking-mokodev
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=fi_FI (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Versions of packages base-files depends on:
ii base-passwd 3.5.22 Debian base system master password
ii mawk [awk] 1.3.3-15 a pattern scanning and text proces
base-files recommends no packages.
base-files suggests no packages.
-- no debconf information
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