What follows is a problem with the emacs 19.29-2 package, but might be relevant to all package maintainers and users so I write it here in public:
I recently tried to install emacs 19.29-2. But it failed due to the fact that I don't have the xlibraries installed yet. That's something I will do in the near future, so please don't argue about that. In order to preserve some space I did a dpkg --purge emacs to get rid of it. But it gave me these errors: +------ | tommie root 10:46 /usr/local/archive/debian # dpkg --purge emacs | (Reading database ... 10251 files and directories currently installed.) | Removing emacs ... | dpkg - warning: while removing emacs, directory `/usr/local/lib' not empty so not removed. | dpkg: error processing emacs (--purge): | cannot remove `/usr/local': Operation not permitted | Errors were encountered while processing: | emacs | tommie root 10:46 /usr/local/archive/debian # +------ There is rule in the remove script that assumes emacs is the only inhabitant of the /usr/local tree. Now I had a look if emacs was really gone: +------ | tommie root 10:55 /usr/local/archive/debian # dpkg -l emacs | Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge | | Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed | |/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required | ||/ Name Version Rev Description | +++-============-=========-====-============================================ | phh emacs 19.29 2 The GNU Emacs editor. | tommie root 10:55 /usr/local/archive/debian # +------ Ian M., Please remove this assumption from the remove script so it can remove itself from the system *and* the package database. Also a word of thank. This purge-action did not try to wipe my entire 250Mb /usr/local partition. That's a good point to note. I still have trust in the debian package system. With regards, Guido.
