On 21.09.05, Faré wrote: > On 9/21/05, René van Bevern <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 21.09.05, Faré wrote: > > > > Hi Faré, > > > > > The only possible downside is having to walk /etc/passwd to locate > > > all the places where to purge the cache, if you wish to do such > > > thing. > > > > No, it is the plain and true evil for package maintainer scripts to > > delete or modify files in users' home directories. It's the user's > > personal space and you never know what he uses ~/.cache for. The > > system should never modify the home directory and I do not know of one > > single package that does.
Hi Faré, > A lot of packages install stuff in the user directory. I doubt that any package does this. > Mozilla, Gimp, OpenOffice, KDE, GNOME, etc., will all create their > own directories under ~/.<foo> and install a shitload of crap. But this is done by the applications themselves and not by packages or their maintainer scripts -- and not for all home directories they can find. It's up to each user if that happens or not. > Sometimes, their offer to upgrade from a previous version, > and optionally offer to delete cruft from previous versions. That is fine. The application themselves can offer transitions from previous versions. But a maintainer script in a package that runs through the home directory of all users to delete files is not fine. The applications *offer* it, it's in the user's hands what happens finally. This would not be the case if a maintainer script traversed all home directories to delete caches. > Modifying users' directories is something done casually. Not by packages or their scripts and not without user interaction. It's dangerous. René
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