Kirk Hogenson wrote: > > Marc Mongeon wrote: > > > > But certainly this was intended to be an automated feature, right? > > Is it a flag that you give to dpkg, or the compiled default in some > > later version (I'm running 1.4.0.34, and have no Contents), or just > > the result of a bunch of Debian users deciding it was a Good Idea > > to schedule a cron job to download this file and put it in > > /var/lib/dpkg? > > > > The way this file was referred to in this thread, it really sounded > > like it was something that should exist, unless you took specific > > steps to remove it from your system. > > I was the one who suggested looking in this file. I had it on > my system, and I don't remember downloading it (but the cron job > idea is pretty good!), or copying it off my CDs. > > My impression was the everybody would have this file on their system > automatically, and was surprised that this isn't the case. > > Maybe this file *used* to be installed (that's why I had it), but with > everybody moving to apt and getting updates via the net, it was decided > that it would be too difficult to keep it up-to-date, and it was > dropped from the slink install. Just a guess, though. > > Kirk
For the life of me, I can't remember how I got the Contents file either. However, I don't believe it ever was part of a debian package. The reason I say this is because I keep a backup of anything I use that didn't come from the distribution(s) on debian.org. I have a backup of Contents-i386 (its old enough now that it may be less than usefull), but it is a tar.gz file, not .deb. -- Ed C.