Bug#241964: gconftool-2 --makefile-uninstall-rule fails with /etc in CVS

David B Harris David B Harris <david@eelf.ddts.net>, 241964@bugs.debian.org
Sat, 3 Apr 2004 21:18:59 -0500


Package: gconf2
Version: 2.4.0.1-4
Severity: normal

Hey there. I prefer keeping my /etc/ in CVS, but I've been running into
trouble lately with some GNOME packages. Specifically, they call
gconftool-2 --makefile-uninstall-rule.

Unfortunately, many /etc/gconf/schemas/ directories contain CVS/
subdirectories, and gconftool-2 fails if it can't delete the directory
because it isn't empty:

Removing gnome-panel-data ...
Failed:
 Failed to delete "/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/apps/gnome_panel_screenshot": Directory not empty
Failed:
 Failed to delete "/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/schemas/apps/gnome_panel_screenshot": Directory not empty
Error syncing config data: Failed:
 Failed to sync XML cache contents to disk
dpkg: error processing gnome-panel-data (--purge):
 subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 gnome-panel-data
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

The consensus among people I've talked to (and there've been a fair
number) is that when a package is purged, it should remove *only* those
configuration files it knows about explicitly, and then it should use
'rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty' to remove any directories that are
involved.

It would probably make sense for gconftool-2 to act similarly; there's
really no guarantee that the directories in question are empty, and as
near as I can tell leaving them around (because the admin has files of
their own in there) causes no harm.

Thanks :)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.2-a2
Locale: LANG=en_CA, LC_CTYPE=en_CA

Versions of packages gconf2 depends on:
ii  libatk1.0-0                 1.4.1-1      The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libc6                       2.3.2.ds1-11 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgconf2-4                 2.4.0.1-4    GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglib2.0-0                2.2.3-1      The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgtk2.0-0                 2.2.4-3      The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  liborbit2                   1:2.8.3-2    libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpango1.0-0               1.2.5-2.1    Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                    1.7-4        lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libxml2                     2.6.8-1      GNOME XML library
ii  zlib1g                      1:1.2.1-5    compression library - runtime

-- no debconf information

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