Re: make upgrade overwrites /etc/mail/mailer.conf

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 02:03:51AM -0600, Jeremy Messenger wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 08:36:35 +0100, Roel van der Hoorn wrote:
> > Does anyone have experience with Gentoo's etc-update?
> > The emerge system doesn't update files in /etc/, but rather creates 
> > temporary files. When you run etc-update it searches for the temporary files 
> > and displays the differences between the original config file and the 
> > 'proposed' configfile. You can accept (the/certain) changes or completely 
> > reject the update. Whatever you like.
> > I think the same type of behaviour can be applied to a make upgrade.

A somewhat more advanced behaviour is what I intended with the
three-way merge. The problem is that you have to keep track of the
base version your /etc/X has, otherwise you can't create helpful
patches.

> It sounds like mergemaster that DragonFly team has replaced to 'make
> upgrade'. I am not going to lie, I think it is mistake to not use
> mergemaster if DragonFly doesn't has another better solution other than
> 'make upgrade'. I think, mergemaster does the better job than what 'make
> upgrade' can offer as far from what I can see is that the 'make upgrade'
> has the more problems than mergemaster has.

They have different intentions. 'make upgrade' allows us to clean the dust
after removing programs like Perl, something mergemaster is unable to do.
The config handling can definitely improved through.

Joerg