Re: Should debian policy require to use debconf for postinst scripts?
Anthony == Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au writes: Anthony Consider, eg, #90676. What is the problem here? If a program tries to read an input from STDIN, then IMHO it is not debconf compliant, as you will still have problems with automatic installations. This is just one bug I have seen with packages that use debconf. Another one is packages that insist on asking the questions twice: once after apt has downloaded the package and once for after the package has been unpacked. Sometime I probably should test some suspect packages for this problem and file bug reports. -- Brian May [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Should debian policy require to use debconf for postinst scripts?
On Wed, 5 Dec 2001, VALETTE Eric wrote: I have been discussing quite a lot on different debian mailing list on a way to automate debian installation. The final and almost unfiform answer was to use debconf in non-interactive mode. The technical reason is that due to use of tty the following command does not work : dpkg -i pakace EOF input1 input2 EOF expect will do wonders. Also, look at /usr/share/doc/expect/examples/autoexpect. It can record your interaction, and produce a working expect script.
Re: Should debian policy require to use debconf for postinst scripts?
On Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 04:35:17PM +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote: It's some work for a maintainer to convert a package that simply uses things like cat EOM for interaction with the user to debconf - and if the maintainer is for any reason not willing to convert his package (he might even refuse a patch) the only way to force him to make this change is when policy says he has to do it. To pseudo-quote Anthony Towns on this one: policy is not a stick to hit lazy maintainers with. There is no way to force anyone, but patches are gratefully accepted by most maintainers. Julian -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, Debian GNU/Linux Developer Queen Mary, Univ. of London see http://people.debian.org/~jdg/ http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~jdg/ or http://www.debian.org/ Visit http://www.thehungersite.com/ to help feed the hungry Also: http://www.helpthehungry.org/
Re: Should debian policy require to use debconf for postinst scripts?
On Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 04:35:17PM +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote: On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Anthony Towns wrote: If debconf isn't good enough that everyone's not using it voluntarily (lilo has been converted *from* debconf), then the obvious thing to do is to improve debconf, not try to force everyone to make their packages worse. Which of these cases is true? 1. debconf misses functionality needed 2. bugs in debconf Consider, eg, #90676. It's some work for a maintainer to convert a package that simply uses things like cat EOM for interaction with the user to debconf - and if the maintainer is for any reason not willing to convert his package (he might even refuse a patch) the only way to force him to make this change is when policy says he has to do it. I just wanted to point out that the current situation is not good for people trying to promote debian in large scale organization by trying to automate install (we have around 250 PC): On one hand, debconf, dpkg have provision for non interactive mode leading to complex code for handling user inputs for acommodating the complex requirements. On the other hand, while most packages have converted to debconf postinst, having package in base install not using debconf postinst mode destroy the work done by everery one. If dpkg, apt-get were allowing to enter inputs from a script, I would not have complained. Here we are in totally absurd situation where tools to handle the problem exist but are not used. Furthermore, the fact that the tools exist forbid to use the old Unix tricks for suplying inputs. That is *completely* the wrong attitude. We're all volunteers; we're not here to be forced to do anything. Yes but freedom stops exactly where freedom starts for the other. What consideration do people rejecting debconf have for those who have converted their cod? If I open a bug to dpkg, apt-get saying I want to be able to install in non-interactive mode, I'm told Not A Bug. Use debconf non-interactive mode. If I do it and find packages that breaks the non-interactive mode, and open a bug against debconf, it is closed saying that the bug is in the package causing the problem. If I open a bug for the package, I'm told never as long as I'm the maintainer of the package Remember me crimeOsoft support sometimes... So I think this is either a policy problem, or that debconf non-interactive mode is meaning less or unusable. Not I do not want to force anyone to use debconf, I'm just asling to have a way to force non-interactive mode for packages not using debconf either by adding a flag to dpkg, dpkg-reconfigure, apt-get to avoid opening a new tty. A least, gieven the discussion I think the issue I rized is not my only concern. And by the way, I love this distrib of course and therefore all the voluntary maintainers :-) Have a nice week-end, -- __ / ` Eric Valette - Canon CRF /-- __ o _. Product Dev. Group Software Team Leader (___, / (_(_(__ Rue de la touche lambert 35517 Cesson-Sevigne Cedex FRANCE Tel: +33 (0)2 99 87 68 91 Fax: +33 (0)2 99 84 11 30 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.crf.canon.fr
Re: Bug#122817: base-files: Please provide profile.d hook in /etc/profile
reassign 122817 debian-policy severity 122817 wishlist thanks On 7 Dec 2001, Javier Fernandez-Sanguino Pena wrote: Package: base-files Version: 3.0 Severity: important Tag: patch First of all, I'm setting this bug as important due to the fact that, even if it works as is some packages (bastille and user-es for example) have to do some very nasty stuff to work properly. The issue here is: how do packages include/change information in the user's environment without changing /etc/profile? Currently there is no way. The profile.d thing has been suggested several times (see the archived bugs for the base-files package) and I have always rejected it because it is against the spirit of policy when it says: 10.9 Environment variables A program must not depend on environment variables to get reasonable defaults. (That's because these environment variables would have to be set in a system-wide configuration file like /etc/profile, which is not supported by all shells.) If a program usually depends on environment variables for its configuration, the program should be changed to fall back to a reasonable default configuration if these environment variables are not present. If we followed this, no program in Debian should ever need a profile.d mechanism. My opinion is that this policy (i.e. that packages should fall back to reasonable defaults) is *good* and should not be changed. Packages needing a profile.d are buggy and should be changed. I'm reassigning this bug to the debian-policy package, where it really belongs.
Processed: Re: Bug#122817: base-files: Please provide profile.d hook in /etc/profile
Processing commands for [EMAIL PROTECTED]: reassign 122817 debian-policy Bug#122817: base-files: Please provide profile.d hook in /etc/profile Bug reassigned from package `base-files' to `debian-policy'. severity 122817 wishlist Bug#122817: base-files: Please provide profile.d hook in /etc/profile Severity set to `wishlist'. thanks Stopping processing here. Please contact me if you need assistance. Debian bug tracking system administrator (administrator, Debian Bugs database)
Re: Bug#122817: base-files: Please provide profile.d hook in /etc/profile
On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 02:20:19PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote: The profile.d thing has been suggested several times (see the archived bugs for the base-files package) and I have always rejected it because it is against the spirit of policy when it says: (..) If we followed this, no program in Debian should ever need a profile.d mechanism. You are wrong here. Sample: - I want to provide a package with a lot of useful bash functions/aliases w/o changing any program - I want my users to have a given enviroment for *all* programs. My opinion is that this policy (i.e. that packages should fall back to reasonable defaults) is *good* and should not be changed. Yes. Reasonable defaults is a good thing. Adding flexibility is another. Packages needing a profile.d are buggy and should be changed. Not all Packages might not need profile.d, administrators might and some special package which customize the environment do to. ¿How can Debian provide any kind of environment customization without this? Take a look at lang-env and user-XX and see the hacks that developers need to do because of this mechanism not currently being implemented. I'm reassigning this bug to the debian-policy package, where it really belongs. Ok. But I have not yet been convinced that this is a 'wishlist' bug. You are only viewing the 'package A needs to set the enviroment for himself and will put stuff in /etc/profile.d' instead of 'package B needs to set the environment for other packages (since we are not going to provide N packages with N being the number of languages we support for example)' 'package C wants to give user's some useful aliases/customization in their shells' 'administrator X wants to add stuff for all his users' Please read the policy diff I adjointed, it does not change the spirit of the word and adds much-needed flexibility! Javi
Re: Should debian policy require to use debconf for postinst scripts?
On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 12:19:51AM +, Julian Gilbey wrote: To pseudo-quote Anthony Towns on this one: policy is not a stick to hit lazy maintainers with. Oh, come now. *Anything* can be a stick to hit lazy maintainers with. Just so long as they get beaten. -- G. Branden Robinson| I came, I saw, she conquered. Debian GNU/Linux | The original Latin seems to have [EMAIL PROTECTED] | been garbled. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein pgp4FU85gNpNV.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#122817: base-files: Please provide profile.d hook in /etc/profile
On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 03:04:39PM +0100, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote: You are wrong here. Sample: - I want to provide a package with a lot of useful bash functions/aliases w/o changing any program Write scripts and put them in /usr/local/bin. - I want my users to have a given enviroment for *all* programs. /etc/environment Santiago is right about this. Yes, it frightens me to hear myself saying that. -- G. Branden Robinson| Exercise your freedom of religion. Debian GNU/Linux | Set fire to a church of your [EMAIL PROTECTED] | choice. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgpGurJRmdLIB.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Should debian policy require to use debconf for postinst scripts?
That is *completely* the wrong attitude. We're all volunteers; we're not here to be forced to do anything. Cheers, aj, wondering if he's going to have to do the must rant yet again -- Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/ I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. Security here. Yes, maam. Yes. Groucho glasses. Yes, we're on it. C'mon, guys. Somebody gave an aardvark a nose-cut: somebody who can't deal with deconstructionist humor. Code Blue. -- Mike Hoye, see http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/armadillos.txt Yes, but we should try to make something that doen't suck too much. The lack of automatic installation is the reason why I don't install Debian any more for my customers. I wrote an automatic installer (which worked) for slink, but I had to spend weeks to adapt the postinst scripts of debian packages to it, and I didn't want to repeat all the work for potato and woody. In my opinion now that we have debconf we should mandate its use by policy. It is true that we are volunteers but we all agree to follow a policy and if the policy says that we must use debconf we'll use it. -- Massimo Dal Zotto +--+ | Massimo Dal Zotto email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Via Marconi, 141phone: ++39-461534251 | | 38057 Pergine Valsugana (TN) www: http://www.cs.unitn.it/~dz/ | | Italy http://www.debian.org/~dz/ | | gpg: 2DB65596 3CED BDC6 4F23 BEDA F489 2445 147F 1AEA 2DB6 5596 | +--+
Re: Should debian policy require to use debconf for postinst scripts?
Massimo Dal Zotto [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I wrote an automatic installer (which worked) for slink, but I had to spend weeks to adapt the postinst scripts of debian packages to it, and I didn't want to repeat all the work for potato and woody. This was my experience, too. In my opinion now that we have debconf we should mandate its use by policy. I think that would be a good idea.
Re: Should debian policy require to use debconf for postinst scripts?
On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 07:58:26PM +0100, Massimo Dal Zotto wrote: In my opinion now that we have debconf we should mandate its use by policy. No. We. Should. Not. If you want every package to use debconf, that's fine and wonderful. Go make a list of the ones that don't, write patches so that they will, file bugs so the maintainer knows about them, then have a friendly discussion with the maintainers to make sure that they're satisfied with the patches. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/ I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. Security here. Yes, maam. Yes. Groucho glasses. Yes, we're on it. C'mon, guys. Somebody gave an aardvark a nose-cut: somebody who can't deal with deconstructionist humor. Code Blue. -- Mike Hoye, see http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/armadillos.txt
