Control: clone -1 -2 Control: reassign -1 dpkg Control: retitle -1 dpkg: please improve reported meta-errors Control: tag -1 - wontfix Control: reassign -2 apt Control: retitle -2 apt: please improve reported meta-errors
Splitting the bug report, because bugs assigned to multiple packages are suboptimal to deal with, and only removing the wontfix for dpkg because I don't know how the apt team might want to deal with this. On Wed, 2000-02-23 at 19:41:53 -0800, Robert Woodcock wrote: > Both dpkg and apt print out meta-errors, i.e. reports of other errors. > Users paste these into channels regularly, and although they do a good job > of letting the user know that it's not working, they don't tell them how to > fix it. (make is the worst offender - make: *** [install] Error 1 gets > pasted more places...) > > Neither dpkg nor apt actually tell you what to do to fix a problem like this > (besides wait until some developer fixes the package). They have to consult > a Debian Expert(tm) who has to pry info from them like which script was > failing, then said Debian Expert(tm) has to refer them to > /var/lib/dpkg/info/packagename.scriptname (scriptname doesn't directly > correlate with dpkg's error messages either!), and only *then* can work > start on determining what the problem really was (this can be three emails > into a bug report, if the user chose that route), and by this time a newbie > can really start hating Debian. > > Addressing this issue will improve the quality of a significant percentage > of bug reports. > > <SuperPhly> anyone ahve any clue... > <SuperPhly> dpkg: error processing xdm (--configure): > <SuperPhly> subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1 > > superphly: did it print out an error *above* that? I agree the messages should be improved, and I'll do so for 1.17.2. But adding the absolute path for the failing maint script does not help much, instead I'll add a longer description of what are the possible correct steps to perform after such errors. Thanks, Guillem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
