Hi, On Mon, 17 May 1999, Joey Hess wrote:
> Er, no. If a program segfaults, it is directly due to a bug in the program. > No exceptions. It is my understanding that the following happens: 1. Apt (or dpkg) calls update-menus, which waits in the backgroung until apt has finished (really: until the dpkg lock is no longer valid.) 2. When update-menus runs, it calls all available menu-methods provided by packages, in order to have the packages rebuild their own particular native menus. 3. Some menu-methods blow up with a segmentation fault. This does not stop update-menus in executing the remaining menu-methods, but a message "segmentation fault" is output on stderr for each menu-method failing in a segmentation fault. I think that I agree that any program that segfaults is buggy, but since the programs that segfault are the menu-methods provided by dwww and afterstep (and maybe some others that I haven't heard about,) it is a bug in the respective programs providing the menu-methods. So IMHO the bug is not related to apt at all, nor is it to blame on menu, as the menu-methods are standalone executables*. If my interpretation of events and causes is incorrect, please do tell me so. Cheers, Joost * the menu-methods are #!/usr/sbin/install-menu scripts, so menu is clearly related. IIRC the menu maintainer changed interfaces and some package maintainers just did not update their menu methods. Please do consult http://www.debian.org/Bugs/db/37/37379.html for more information.
