Alexander E. Patrakov wrote: > Mike Lynch wrote: >> One of the nice things about the Solaris package manager is that *every* >> file installed is registered in a database (just an CSV file so no DB >> software >> like SQL needed) so it's easy to find out what has been installed. Package >> removal references the database to remove files. Furthermore, more than >> one package or more than one instance of the same package can claim >> ownership of a file such that removal of a file will not occur until the >> last >> package claiming ownership of a file is removed. During removal, only >> registered files are removed so any user created files remain. Registered >> directories are only removed if they are empty so if the user adds files >> to a registered directory after installing a package, package removal will >> not delete them because they are not registered and the registered directory >> will then not be removed. This prevents loss of user generated >> configuration >> files and the like. > > This all is also present in Slackware scripts. They also use this > feature for upgrades: upgrading means installing the newer package and > removing the older version after that.
There is a problem that I see from the above description. It may or may not be an actual problem. What about a config file that *is* installed in a package and may be modified by a user? Examples might be /etc/php.ini or /etc/apache/httpd.conf. I wouldn't want these files deleted, even if I deleted the package. My impression of an "update" is to replace all files that are in the package and that might include user modified files. -- Bruce -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
