Re: Filing bug reports in Debian (was Re: Debian Stole My Name!)

On Tuesday 14 October 2008, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 03:08:17PM -0400, Hal Vaughan wrote:
For instance, stating it in the file: Again, not everyone has time
to read all the comments in all the files. As to unrealistic
expectations, what would be so hard with using a bash script
specifying the rewrite was going to happen? It's not that hard.

Hal,

I agree that there should be some mechanism to prevent a user from
shooting him/herself in the foot if they make a change to a file
between two markers that remind the user that those changes will be
overwritten on the next kernel upgrade. It shouldn't be necessary,
but since it can prevent the system from booting, and since with raid
and LVM it may not be as simple to fix as it used to be, it would be
a nice touch if something was done.

That's part of my point: It's a MAJOR file. Sure, if CUPS stops
working, then it's a major pain and can bring down a business because
you can't print anything, but still, it's not as critical as disabling
the entire machine. I had another computer to connect to the Internet
and research the issue. It's very possible someone could update their
only system and end up with no way to research the issue if they didn't
have a Knoppix CD or something similar handy.

However, everyone who edits a config file should at least read from
the top of the file down to where they want to edit, at least enough
to read prominent warnings such as are in menu.list. It goes with
the territory of su - ing, sudo-ing, or logging in as root.

Yes, and no. That's a wonderful statement and it sounds just fantastic
in theory. If I had all the time in the world and didn't have to make
a living, then I could take the time to read every man page on every
program I read and go through every config file from start to finish
and know everything about every program I use.

That's just not possible in real life, not for me, and not for a lot of
people. If you've ever bought a new digital camera and started using
it without reading the directions or picked up any new piece of
equipment and hooked it up without going over all the details, then
you've done the same thing.

Sometimes you can spend hours or, literally, days, searching for
information on Google or on mailing lists and finally find a HOWTO on
what to do. Before that you may not have known what program or conf
file was at the heart of the issue, but then you find a HOWTO that
gives you a long explanation on what is going on and tells you just how
to fix the problem.

Reading all the details sounds find in theory and I truly wish I lived
in the kind of fantasy world where I had time to do that.
Unfortunately, I have to earn an income and I like to spend a few hours
a day doing something besides working with computers and sleeping.

There's also another major issue with many man pages and conf files: you
can read them through and not be aware of how points mentioned in that
file effect other points. If you read menu.lst, it tells you the
automagic list can be changed. Okay, if you're new to working with
that, then you say, "Okay, I'll just make a note to never run
grub-update." Problem solved. Nowhere in the file does it say, "The
update-grub script is run whenever a new kernel is installed."

Perhaps
put a line in root's .profile or somewhere that gives you a warning
whenever you become root:


WARNING: YOU HAVE A LOCKED AND LOADED ASSAULT RIFLE POINTED AT
YOUR FEET AND YOUR FINGER IS ON THE TRIGGER.

Interesting analogy, but it doesn't work, for several reasons. First,
it's quite possible to remove your finger from the trigger, or to just
say, "I won't pull the trigger and that solves the whole problem."
Honestly, there's a good chance that's what I did. As I've said, this
was 2 years ago and I just don't remember it that clearly.

If you say I have a gun pointed at my feet and my finger is on the
trigger, then I can make a choice: Do I pull the trigger or not? In
this case, without warning, apt or aptitude pulls the trigger, WITHOUT
WARNING.

That's a critical point: The file was overwritten without my knowing or
without so much as a warning. The warning in menu.lst says:

## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified
## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below

Notice it does NOT say when update-grub is run. It does NOT say, "apt
will overwrite this list when the kernel is upgraded." With the
warning given, unless someone has a technical understanding of apt,
they have no reason to anticipate it overwriting menu.lst.

In your analogy, all someone has to do to not shoot themselves in the
foot is not pull the trigger. In this situation, with menu.lst, I
never planned to pull the trigger.

Apt pulled it for me, without warning or consent.

That's a MAJOR difference!


Hal


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