On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 06:44:05 -0500, Bradley Pursley <pursley001@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Another problem I've noticed is that when new software is being > installed, there are no tests done to verify that it installed and is > working correctly, which has been a big problem on my system. I've had > to manually "fix" quite a number of the installs and sometimes when it > updates the software, it undoes my fixes and I have to re-apply the fix > again, which is highly aggravating. Updates should not automatically > mess with the configuration files, especially if they've been manually > changed, unless it prompts the system user and gives you the option of > whether you want the updated file or just want to adjust the current > one. For programming, this would be easy to implement without changing > packaging requirements (don't overwrite older non-executable files, just > rename them or move them to a "backup" location and advise user of the > change). Updates shouldn't be messing with config files in the vast majority of the packages. Normally the new config file gets name whatever.rpmnew and you need to manually look at what's changed and see if you need to do anything. In the rare cases where the config file needs to be replaced, the old one should be named whatever.rpmsave and you again need to manually look at what changed and decide what to do. You can use a find command to find all of these in /etc that will run pretty quick.
