On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 05:30:55PM +0100, Alexander Watzinger wrote: > deborphan's keep file is located in /var/lib/deborphan. According to > the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, /var/lib/ is for persistent data > modified by programs as they run, which isn't really the case for > deborphan.
The handling of deborphan's keep file through the options --add-keep, --del-keep and --zero-keep does exactly fit to that description, as does using editkeep, which uses these options, to alter the keep file. I used Wikipedia to get the URL of the FHS: someone wrote "packaging systems metadata" (in my opinion deborphan's keep file could be categorized as such) as example" for "persistent data modified by programs as they run". Although Wikipedia is no reliable source, it at least shows that I'm not the only one with this opinion. > /etc seems like a better location for it. I don't think the keep file is a configuration file. According to the FHS these are "used to control the operation of a program". One example for such a file used by deborphan is one that allows to specify deborphan's default options. In Debian we do distinguish between conffiles and configuration files. All conffiles are configuration files but not vice versa. These conffiles are handled specially by dpkg. If you are able to convince me (which I doubt), deborphan's keep file would not be a conffile but a configuration file. > Our reason for wanting this change is that we backup /etc to keep our > server configuration but not /var/lib. Data from dpkg, apt and probably also aptitude resists in /var/lib, as does debfosters keepers file. You miss some IMHO important data when you skip /var/lib in your backups. I would also backup /var/cache/debconf, which is no database - but answering the same questions again is time-consuming. I leave the bug open for a while to let others or you the chance to add comments and try to convince me. Regards Carsten -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
