Config modified?

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

On Wed, 2004-10-13 at 12:25 -0400, John Dennis wrote:
> No, system configuration settings should not be "forgotten" when an RPM
> is updated provided the spec file properly identifies configuration
> files as "noreplace". Any configuration settings that are lost on an RPM
> upgrade should probably be filed as a bug against the package.
> 

Throughout the rest of this thread, let's keep in mind that I don't have
any problem, my system functions well, and I am not complaining. I am
going through this as an exercise in usability of the system and some of
its packages. That being said...

I instructed up2date to update a2ps, which due to "Config modified" was
in the list of packages to skip. Once I told it to go ahead, everything
proceeded and the update was done with no further warnings or messages.

	1. Why was I not told what would happen to my old config (rpmnew vs.
rpmsave) if the fact that I had changed it at all was such a big deal in
the first place?

I checked /usr/share/a2ps/afm and sure enough, there was my old (27-sep)
fonts.map.rpmsave file and the new fonts.map file. So it *did* move my
old config file out of the way and replace it with the new one.

	2. If it was going to remove my old config anyway, how would Joe
Average know (since there were *no* messages or text on it) to go
looking for an rpmsave file, where he could then integrate his changes
into the new config file? This sounds like a recipe for "forgotten"
configurations, but an up2date UI problem rather than an RPM problem.

I checked the new fonts.map file and saw nothing strange (of course,
it's the first time I ever looked at that file. I created a
fonts.map.new with the /usr/share/a2ps/afm/make_fonts_map.sh script and
the result was identical to the fonts.map file the new package
installed.

Finally, I used "diff" to compare fonts.map and its rpmsave equivalent.
The *only* differences I can find were fonts that got renamed by the
newer package and fonts that were added by the newer package. Also, the
only non-FC software on this system is Sun StarOffice 7... and while I
would have expected it to modify some fonts, I cannot find any evidence
that it did so.

	3. So what actually changed in my old config to make it bitch like
that?

I can provide both the fonts.map and the fonts.map.rpmsave files if
anyone wants to take a quick peek at them. I can also simply post the
output of diff if that would be easier.

Any comments welcome.

Cheers,

-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz <rpaiz at simpaticus.com>
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