[Pkg-kbd-devel] Bug#734164: console-data: should conflict with console-setup

[Michael Schutte]

Hey,

On Tue, Feb 04, 2014 at 08:37:08PM +0200, Anton Zinoviev wrote:
> I am not sure I understand entirely the relations between various 
> console-related packages.  There are too many of them - console-setup, 
> console-data, console-common, kbd (not to mention the obsoleted 
> console-tools and console-cyrillic) and each of these packages provides 
> some console-related configuration in /etc.

Neither do I, there's just so much historical complexity.  For example,
I've just investigated where console-data's debconf templates even come
from, because this isn't immediately obvious from the source package.
It turns out that they're generated by dh_consoledata, of which
console-data is the only user in the archive.

> What do you think about the following method for transition to a system 
> without console-data and console-common:
> 
> 1. Move the configuration scripts of kbd, console-common and 
> console-data to one common place.  This can be either kbd or 
> console-setup.

I'm not sure if I understand this point.  Would you like to keep these
old configuration files?  My preferred course of action for kbd, for
example, would be to drop /etc/init.d/kbd, /etc/kbd/config and
/etc/kbd/remap from the binary package and actively remove these
conffiles via the maintainer scripts if all three of them are without
local changes.  Then the (presumably few) people who were relying on kbd
to configure their console could keep doing so, while everyone else
(including new installs) won't be confused by the many console-related
conffiles any more.

I do not like the idea of having an /etc/kbd/config owned by
console-setup, for example, when the same options can and should be
changed through /etc/default/console-setup.

> 2. Remove any legacy Debconf configuration from these packages.  People 
> who need Debconf to configure the console should use console-setup.

Agreed.

> 3. When all legacy scripts are in one place it will be much easier to 
> simplify them.  Especially considering that there will be no Debconf, 
> nor any need to configure something in postinst.

As far as I can tell, this shouldn't be too hard even without moving
everything to one package first:

  * /etc/init.d/kbd can be dropped by kbd if there are no local
    changes to itself and its configuration files.  Its unique features
    would ideally be ported to setupcon (but configured in one common
    place; /etc/default/console-setup seems ideal to me).
  * Same for /etc/init.d/keymap.sh from console-common.
  * /etc/init.d/keyboard-setup from keyboard-configuration remains
    unchanged; it does what keymap.sh was designed to do, but using
    setupcon.
  * /etc/init.d/console-setup remains.

> 4. When installing new system, the default conffiles in /etc (such as 
> /etc/kbd/config) will leave everything to console-setup.  Ofcourse, on 
> upgrades these conffiles will be used the way they currently are.

Pretty much, although as I said, I'd be for not even shipping these
superfluous conffiles any more if we can help it.  IMHO we should aim
for dropping all console-related configuration files except for
/etc/default/keyboard, /etc/default/console-setup and
/etc/console-setup/*.

> 5. After that we can remove console-common and we can transform 
> console-data to just a collection of legacy fonts and keymaps.

Indeed.

Cheers,
Michael