Josh Triplett <j...@joshtriplett.org> writes: > Enrico Weigelt wrote:
>> I have a general objection against putting (default) configs outside >> /etc at all. The main problem is, on updates, defaults might silently >> change, without operators used to look at /etc and comparing current >> config with new defaults. > By default, dpkg will silently upgrade unmodified conffiles to the > current version, without prompting the user at all. If you've modified > the conffile, dpkg will prompt you to find out if you want to keep your > modified version, upgrade to the new upstream version, see a diff, or > run a shell; dpkg will default to keeping your modified version. > So, unless you've changed a configuration file, you already won't get a > prompt on configuration upgrades. But right now with configuration in /etc if you have changed *any* configuration setting, you then get prompted for *all* configuration changes in the package, which I think is Enrico's point. And I agree, I kind of like that behavior. Configuration settings can interact in unexpected ways, so if I've had to customize the configuration, I kind of like knowing when other defaults change. They may affect the thing I had to customize. > If the configuration upgrade might matter to sysadmins, the Debian > package should provide an upgrade note in NEWS.Debian, or upstream > should provide a note in NEWS (which I wish apt-listchanges could show, > at least when it follows a standard format). Upstream's NEWS generally has *way* too much noise to expect people to look at it by default. NEWS.Debian isn't a horrible solution, but it doesn't provide a way of saying "no, don't apply this change but still continue with the package installation," which I think you need for configuration files. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87k45de69a....@windlord.stanford.edu
