Ok, thanks for your reactions. I know, guys like me can get on ones nerves... :-)
I'm moving this thread to debian-policy, where I should have started it rigth at the beginning. Please reply there. I knew there would be people working on that problem, but actually, my idea goes into some completely different direction than the ones I could find in the archives and that ones that are being worked on. (At least from what I could find. In fact: Debian installation needs some way for auto-configuration, there are several solutions proposed for that and being worked on. What I was thinking about is closely linked to that problem but actually is independant from it: I do not talk about where packages should get their configuration information from, I did talk about what they do, if they do not have the information necessary. (And even with he perfect autoconfig system, there will be stuations when the packages lack some information they need to configure completely) IMO, packages should under no circumstances complain about anything if it is avoidable at all. No matter if there is a automatic configuration system or not. We should simply make it policy that a package should always install to some safe state without asking any questions at installation time. Now, if there is any configuration necessary before the package can be used, it should put a notice in a log file that is viewed automatically after all packages have been installed. It was said, this would be a long process because a large heap of packages will have to be worked over. If it is made policy and bugs are filed against packages that do not comply, the process should not be that long. Of course, we can leave the maintainers plenty of time before the severity of these bugs is raised, but once there is a apropriate logging mechanism within the postinst scripts, it will not be a big deal to change anyway. Perhaps as one quick intermediate solution until we have or perfect configure system: Put up a directory where any package that need some configuration can put in a script. (perhaps created in the postinst) Then have one global script "debian-config" or however you want to call it, that does nothing but call all the scripts in that directory and delete each one after successful completion. This will be very easy to use for any package maintainer and be a useable solution until all packages have a real configuration system. Ciao, Nobbi -- -- ______________________________________________________ -- JESUS CHRIST IS LORD! -- To Him, even that machine here has to obey... -- -- _________________________________Norbert "Nobbi" Nemec -- Hindenburgstr. 44 ... D-91054 Erlangen ... Germany -- eMail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Tel: +49-(0)-911-204180
