Hi James, On 13/05/26 4:40 pm, James Addison wrote: > Hi Nilesh, > > On Sun, 10 May 2026 at 09:23, Nilesh Patra <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On 31/10/25 10:00 pm, James Addison wrote: >>> Thanks, Alexandre, >>> >>> On Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 17:46 Alexandre Detiste <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi, >>>> >>>> Trixie has been released. >>>> We/you can proceed with the plan to remove >>>> the current unpatched/verbatim /etc/matplotlibrc >>>> >>> >>> I'll file a python3-matplotlib bugreport for this cleanup after spending a >>> little time to trace the history of the mpl-data directory referenced in >>> the same patch. >> So, as per the documentation >> https://matplotlib.org/stable/users/explain/customizing.html#customizing-with-matplotlibrc-files >> >> It searches for 4 places. The 4th place is actually >> "INSTALL/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc, where INSTALL is something like >> /usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages" >> >> Since upstream kind of supports having matplotlibrc as a global setting, I >> am having second thoughts if we should just keep >> `/etc/matplotlibrc` as that is the right place for system specific config >> files to reside. >> >> We are also installing /usr/share/matplotlib/matplotlib.conf/matplotlibrc >> but I am unsure how useful this is. >> >> Could someone advice? > > I'm not sure what to do about the /etc/matplotlibrc file and whether > to include it in the python-matplotlib-data package. Currently we > ship three identical copies of it: > > $ sha256sum /etc/matplotlibrc > /usr/share/matplotlib/matplotlib.conf/matplotlibrc > /usr/share/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc > 097216cf659e1afde4ca842c3010ce3b49b7c85f4cfe92b5122857974d70d1bc
While we do have this, I think the code for search paths never output this. I am unsure about this config. > /etc/matplotlibrc > 097216cf659e1afde4ca842c3010ce3b49b7c85f4cfe92b5122857974d70d1bc > /usr/share/matplotlib/matplotlib.conf/matplotlibrc > 097216cf659e1afde4ca842c3010ce3b49b7c85f4cfe92b5122857974d70d1bc > /usr/share/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc I dropped /usr/share/matplotlib/matplotlib.conf/matplotlibrc in the last upload. It wasn't referenced anywhere in the code, as far as I could see. The commit adding this dates back to 2013, and the install rule was not changed post that. I believe it was safe to just drop this. > (these are not symlinks -- and for reference, they're from > python-matplotlib-data/3.10.7+dfsg1-3) Yes, I saw that in the last upload. Same template matplotlibrc is installed everywhere. > As a reminder and/or for mailing list readers: the upstream matplotlib > documentation _does not_ mention /etc/matplotlibrc -- the Debian > source package adds a patch that introduces it: > > > https://sources.debian.org/src/matplotlib/3.10.7+dfsg1-4/debian/patches/20_matplotlibrc_path_search_fix.patch Right. > I think this means that in practice, some Debian installations may be > using the /etc/matplotlibrc file to customise matplotlib's > configuration, so we should be cautious about removing it. > > As a system operator, I'd probably want to know that the file is > no-longer-used at the same time as a python-matplotlib-data package > update that stops reading from it. > > In other words: I _wouldn't_ want either of these situations: (the > file to be removed silently by a package update, despite the library > still attempting to read from it) OR (the file to continue to exist, > despite the library no longer reading from it). If we want to be extra careful, how about a NEWS item for forky that the conffile will be removed in the next stable release and drop the patch and also the conffile for duke? > If we remove the conffile and update the patch to remove > /etc/matplotlibrc as a config location from the library: would a > Debian host where the /etc/matplotlibrc file has been customised > usually emit a warning/note during package update/purge? update, yes it would. `rm_conffile` would save the file as `conffile.dpkg-bak` and print a note. The documentation is at: https://manpages.debian.org/unstable/dpkg-dev/deb-conffiles.5.en.html and code in the question (for warn) is at: https://git.dpkg.org/cgit/dpkg/dpkg.git/tree/src/dpkg-maintscript-helper.sh#n120 purge, I think no. I tried on my system, and I did not see a warning if I locally modify the conffile (warning unless I missed something basic). But I am unsure how a warning is relevant here, as the sysadmin is trying to get rid of the package and the conffiles. Best, Nilesh
