Hi, Now that the focus is turning onto debconf'ing packages, I am going to ask a question that has been plaguing me whenever I start thinking about debconfing some of my packages.
I have at least two packages now (dist and mailagent) that can use, and thus care about, the organization as recorded in /etc/news/organization. (Note that neither is a NNTP client or server or a MUA). A third, Gnus, also should use the value contained therein. I am sure there must be any number of news servers, NNTP clients, etc, that also care for the value in /etc/new/organization, and arrange for that file to be created, though I have no idea how many there are, or which packages do so care. At this point, in the postinst, the packages check to see if /etc/news/organization exists, or, if not, ask the user and create it. Given that the check is done before asking any question in the postinst, if you do install all three of the packages, the first one whose postinst runs shall ask the question, and create the file; subsequently, the other packages won't ask the question, since the file /etc/news/organization shall exist. So the user is only asked once. Now, if all these packages use debconf, and they all preconfigure, then when the preconfiguration is run, the file does not exist -- and thus all the packages in question shall query the user -- bombarding the installer with multiple versions of the same question, over and over again -- unless all the packages use the same, shared, variable. If there is to be a shared variable, what should the common shared toplevel hierarchy be? I don't see all these packages (dist, mailagent, Gnus, VM, and other packages) using a common (virtual) package name; they are not even close to being similar types of packages, and thus do not share a common purpose in general, only for this variable. The question then becomes: what is this shared variable called? How does a package maintainer discover this variable? How are updates to common templates made? Does some package "own" this shared variable template? Which one? Where is this central registry of shared variablenames, so that the next package wanting to create /etc/news/organization can use the same variable, and not ask the user yet another duplicate question. manoj -- Gunter's Airborne Discoveries: When you are served a meal aboard an aircraft, the aircraft will encounter turbulence. The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee. Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/> 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C