How packages should supply dependency information

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2005, Thomas Hood wrote:
> Enhance update-rc.d so that dependency information can be given to it
> via a file.  The file would have the standard name

If you are going to do it via a file, then it is much better if you actually
place one file *per initscript* (and not per package) in /usr/share
somewhere, and run update-rc.d --update-database <package name> file
[file...] or some other "please update the initscript system now".

> Options specified on the command line would override any in the file,
> where 'start' corresponds to 'Default-Start:' and 'stop' to 'Default-Stop:'.

No.  Please lets get rid of the kludges and fix update-rc.d while at it.
Add an local admin mode, that stores parallel data in /etc, and packages are
not to use that.  Later, whichever tool needs something merges both sets,
with the /etc entries overriding the /usr ones.

If a package needs to change dep information, it just changes its file in a
new upload.  If the local admin wants to override something, he can
override just the entries he wants to of the initscripts he wants to.  This
is something current update-rc.d cannot do.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh