Hans wrote: > But I wondered, why this file is not modified during my updates. As people > told, /etc/profile is > part of the package base-files and is copied from > /usr/share/base-files/profile. > > Examination of the files showed, there is a differnce between /etc/profiles > and /usr/share/base- > files/profile.
When you upgrade packages on an existing system, some packages will note that they have big changes that you will need to make in their config files; others will note that the defaults have changed. It is up to you to decide to make those small changes. > I would have expected, that both foles are identical and /etc/profile will be > renewed and > overwritten during upgrades. If it is not necessary, that won't happen. That would change behavior out from underneath you. Witness, for example, the unhappiness when the default config for vim was changed so that people who relied on the system default config suddenly had X11 cut/paste fail. > Can someone tell me, why not? And related to this question: Does this > behaviour effect other > files, too, like bashrc bashrc_aliases and similar? > > I saw some changes to these files in /etc/skel/, so these might only affect > newly added users > (whoich I do not have). My system is really, really old, first install was > Debian/Etch and then > upgraded until today (Bookworm). If it is not necessary to keep the system running, it shouldn't be changed without your permission. As you note, /etc/skel only affects newly created users. You might find it useful to look at the results of: find /etc -name "*dpkg*" -print to see what has been proposed in the last upgrade cycle. -dsr-
