* On 2023 12 Jun 07:51 -0500, Celejar wrote: > On Sun, 11 Jun 2023 12:31:31 -0400 > Dan Ritter <d...@randomstring.org> wrote: > > Everything's working. In the end, I didn't make any config > > changes (left everything as "keep current config"). > > This is the part that always stresses me out; I often have changes in > the default config files that I don't want to lose, but I'm also > worried about not getting the latest versions of the config files. I > usually try to accept the new files and manually bring in any important > changes I've made to the old ones, but this takes time and patience to > do right, and things can break if not done right :)
I've been experimenting with Arch Linux for some time and one thing I like about its pacman package management system is that it has a tool available named 'pacdiff'. The details are off topic but in a nutshell what it does is identify a locally modified config and the corresponding new config files and can open them in 'vimdiff' giving a nice display of the diff using the vim editor. Once the editing is complete there is a final step to discard the new config file or replace the current one with it. I do like that Debian retains the new file with various file name extensions for future reference. I know that apt allows for viewing a unified diff of the files, but it has been quite some time since I've been presented with that menu that I don't recall if editing based on the diff is an option. It certainly seems that calling vimdiff in that situation would be quite easy but I realize that not many are comfortable with vim and would want a more universal editor that I might not like. Typically, if it appears that there are major changes to a config file then I will install the maintainer's version, note it, and edit it for needed local changes later. I've been bitten by keeping all of my local configs in the past so I don't do that any more. - Nate -- "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true." Web: https://www.n0nb.us Projects: https://github.com/N0NB GPG fingerprint: 82D6 4F6B 0E67 CD41 F689 BBA6 FB2C 5130 D55A 8819
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