Updates to debianutils, new essential package sensible-utils

Dear all,

as I learned last night, the essential package debianutils in 10.7/base was recently update by Justin to version 4.3.2. At the same time, a new essential package "sensible-utils" was introduced, and ftpfiles.info was modified. Perhaps more happened, too.

First off, I am glad people are working on updating our core packages. Thanks! However, I have some suggestions on how to handle such instances in the future, and also some questions.

For one, I think it would be good if we notified fink-core whenever essential packages are modified updated. This is why I made a pull request before updating dpkg and other core packages. And this holds even more so when new essential packages are added -- I'd expect a mail announcing that with a warning in big red letters whenever it happens. Actually, thinking again, I'd expect that email *before* it happens, with some explanations as to why it happens, and a few days chance to react... perhaps there was such a mail, but if so, I can't find it :-(.


Secondly, any addition of or change to an essential packages should soon afterwards be reflected in fink.git -- otherwise, people who do a a fresh bootstrap and then run "fink selfupdate" will have to update packages right away. But ideally, a "selfupdate" in a freshly bootstrapped Fink, using  the most recent fink tarball, should not have to install anything.

For this very same reason, every essential package should be installed during bootstrap. Indeed, by the very definition of essential, an essential package ought to be installed at all times; if we don't install them during bootstrap, then we leave the system in a potentially unsafe and undefined state.

Thus, if "sensible-utils" stays "essential", it should also be added to fink.git. However, I also wonder whether sensible-utils really needs to be essential? Could somebody (Justin?) please explain why it has to be "essential" at all?


Finally, it would be very nice if those changes could be mirrored to the 10.4 tree, too. AFAIK, Justin can't test there, and hence didn't move them over blindly -- very laudable! However, I think we should try to find people who do those tests, so that we can move it over. Having base/ out of sync between 10.4 and 10.7 could easily lead to very annoying issues in the future, so I'd rather avoid it if possible :-).

So, if anybody here has a 10.6 or 10.5 system and can test the new debianutils / ftpfiles / sensible-utuls packages there, please do!



Cheers,
Max
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