Hello, I am writing a transitional package to handle a software name change. There are two problems I'm trying to handle: - How to avoid marking the new package (which the transitional package depends upon) as being autoinstalled. - How to deal with old conffiles not adopted by the new package.
I have posed these two questions before, one on Debian User (http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2011/12/msg00739.html), one on Debian Devel (http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/12/msg00337.html). In both cases, I have received helpful advice and the suggestion to pose these questions on Debian Mentors. So I'll recap what I have learned so far and hope you can fill in the mising pieces. Regarding the unmark auto flag, I know now that newer versions of apt will not mark packages as auto if they are autoinstalled due to a package in section 'oldlibs' or 'metapackages'. So, if the transitional package belongs to one of those two and gets installed by 'apt-get dist-upgrade' in Squeeze, everything is fine. But what if another tool is used, e.g. aptitude. And how can I support people still running Lenny? I have tested clearing the flag in '/var/lib/apt/extended_state' from the postinst script of the transitional package. But aptitude will override this by setting the flag later during the upgrade. And its a hack, anyway. Regarding the configuration files, I know now that newer versions of dpkg include 'dpkg-maintscript-helper' with commands to move or remove conffiles. This works nicely in Squeeze. But again, how can I support systems with Lenny? In order to make the transitional package forget about a conffile, I tested removing it in the package's postinst script and also remove the corresponding entry from /var/lib/dpkg/info/<package>.list. That seems to work, but I would consider it a hack as well. I have found the interesting thread 'Transitional (dummy) packages considered silly' on Debian Devel (http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/09/msg00687.html). Will any of the suggestions made there make it into Debian? E.g., how about a new control field 'Superseeds'? There are probably more questions regarding transitional packages than the two I have come across so far. It seems to me there could be better support for transitional packages in Debian in terms of policy, tool support and documentation. What are your thoughts? Of course, I'd be happy to help in bringing these issues along. Thanks, Malte -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
