Bill Mitchell writes ("Re: backup software in /bin or /usr/bin ?"):
> It sounds like the sysadmin might make a choice to use cpio (or ...)
> for backups instead of tar, and might manually move the backup program
> from /usr/bin to /bin after package install.
Right.
> Perhaps packages supplying prospective backup support programs should
> check for and handle this possibility by having postinst move the
> upgrade binary from /usr/bin to /bin in postinst if a file of the
> same name exists there, and by having postrm delete such a file.
> It seems error-prone to rely on individual maintainers to do this
> without fail and in a consistent manner, though.
>
> Alternatively, dpkg itself might do this processing for all files
> installed by all packages into /usr/bin. Sysadmins could then decide
> to relocate whatever they desired from /usr/bin to /bin, and it'd
> be handled reasonably through package upgrades and removals.
>
> Do I hear a loud objection and a better suggestion from Ian J? ;-)
What I'm thinking of doing is providing a generic mechanism for
package X to say "install /foo/bar as /spong/wibble instead".
This would allow wrapper programs (which typically want to move aside
the originals) to be installed, and when used with a "null" X would
allow sysadmins to override the distribution's X.
It could also be used here.
I'd be interested to hear of any other similar things (applications or
solutions - briefly, please!) people might want to do, as this will
make it much clearer to me what the requirements are.
Ian.
