[pkg-fso-maint] breakage ahead

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 11:02:06AM +0100, Heiko Stübner wrote:
>Am Mittwoch 13 Januar 2010 schrieb Jonas Smedegaard:
>> conf-files cannot use alternatives system. Using other methods is 
>> also tricky to do right - i.e. preserve user customizations etc.
>thanks for the hint
>
>> The IMHO best - i.e. simplest and most reliable to maintain - is to 
>> ship with the software using it a plain configfile, tagged by the 
>> packaging mechanisms as a conffile.
>The problem is to find a way to provide the user with a ready-to-go 
>config for his phone. The daemon-configs contain only settings to make 
>the daemon work on one specific phone. So the user can't really change 
>the behaviour of the daemon with config settings as there is really 
>only a correct one [works or not :) ] for each specific phone.
>
>So a solution would be nice to keep the user from having to edit a 
>config where he has no real choices and can only copy settings from a 
>README :-)
>
>Ideas?

  * Have main package depend on <package>-config-generic with fallback 
    to a virtual package <package>-config, ship pristine config in that
    -config-generic package, and ship customized alternatives in
    -config-<type> packages. Have all -config-* flavors replace and
    conflict with (but *not* provide!) each other.

  * Convince upstream to support multilayered configs, making above 
    distro-specific task easier and more elegant to maintain in the 
    future: install the upstream config at one place, distro overlay
    another place, and an empty-by-default sysadmin-editable
    conffile-controlled file below /etc.


  - Jonas

-- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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