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(The IMO and AFAIC marginal utility of obtaining 'help' on
IRC channels aside) it was suggested to me on #debian on
Freenode that I post this suggestion here, in case it hasn't
been previously considered:


Has this ever been considered by Debian:

A lot of issues with users come about because of incorrect
file/dir permissions (for whatever reasons. Make no
assumptions, please. There's a good reason why Ubuntu now
exists).

Wouldn't the '/var/lib/dpkg/info/<package>.list' files be
the perfect place to explicitly lay out the file & directory
permissions/user/group info for each file in a package? That
way, the users could, if necessary, check the present state
of their packages by this list, first, to see if their
problems might possibly be cleared up by adherence to this
schema. The worst that could happen would be that the info
in the .list file would be wrong -- itself a symptom of a
bad install, etc.

Does this make sense? It seems to make quite a lot of sense
to me -- and IMO would make a lot of sense to a lot of
confused, frustrated people as well.


- -- grok.





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On Thursday 01 January 2009, grok <grok@resist.ca> wrote about 'Suggestion
about file permissions being listed in debian packages':
>A lot of issues with users come about because of incorrect
>file/dir permissions (for whatever reasons. Make no
>assumptions, please. There's a good reason why Ubuntu now
>exists).

I don't know that's true, but I'll assume it is for the benefit of further
discussion.

>Wouldn't the '/var/lib/dpkg/info/<package>.list' files be
>the perfect place to explicitly lay out the file & directory
>permissions/user/group info for each file in a package?

Yes.

>That
>way, the users could, if necessary, check the present state
>of their packages by this list, first, to see if their
>problems might possibly be cleared up by adherence to this
>schema. The worst that could happen would be that the info
>in the .list file would be wrong -- itself a symptom of a
>bad install, etc.

I agree.

>Does this make sense?

Yes.

Try searching the archives for previous discussions (I don't remember any,
but the list has been around a *long* time), you might find some less
agreeable points of view that will help sharpen your argument. Assuming
no one pipes up here with an issue after a week or so. File a bug
(wishlist priority) against the "general" pseudo-package, and follow up
it's opening with a mail to debian-devel; that should get the ball
rolling.
--
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ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-'
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