Re: [gpsd-dev] New 0.5 draft of the SemPiTernal HOWTO

[Oliver Jowett]

On 10 May 2016 at 11:38, Frank Nicholas <address@hidden> wrote:

On May 9, 2016, at 7:23 PM, Oliver Jowett <address@hidden> wrote:

init.d scripts are usually conffiles so only get removed on purge, not on simple package removal. Traditionally the first thing they do is test that the corresponding binary is actually

Really?  Init.d scripts are configured files and not part of the “package?  That’s surprising to me, and doesn’t seem quite right.

conffiles can be provided as part of the package, there are just different rules for what happens to them on an upgrade or package removal to avoid clobbering user changes.

see https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html 9.3.2

"The /etc/init.d scripts must be treated as configuration files [...] This is important since we want to give the local system administrator the chance to adapt the scripts to the local system, e.g., to disable a service without de-installing the package, or to specify some special command line options when starting a service, while making sure their changes aren't lost during the next package upgrade."

"update-rc.d foo disable" or "systemctl mask foo" are probably the canonical ways to disable the package scripts.

Would these work or be needed if “purge” was used?

They should be harmless if the corresponding service isn't there.

Oliver