[Pkg-gpm-devel] Bug#266822: gpm: debconf abuse; overwrites /etc/gpm.conf without asking

[Gergely Nagy]

Package: gpm
Version: 1.9.16-14
Severity: serious

I just upgraded gpm today, and was greeted with a sequence of debconf
questions. Now, I _had_ gpm configured just fine, an upgrade shouldn't
have bring up such a thing in the first place. I'd suggest checking if
/etc/gpm.conf exists, and skipping the debconf stuff in that case.

Furthermore, it DID NOT PROVIDE an option to leave my /etc/gpm.conf
alone, which I consider serious. I had a quite complex /etc/gpm.conf,
one that sourced other files, depending on the host it is used, and it
also had stuff my version control system uses. All this has been
overwritten, so my mouse does not work on any of my computers.

Please, stop abusing debconf. It is not meant to break configurations,
but to provide defaults, based on user input, where sensible defaults
cannot be made without the users help. But if the user already has
things set up, debconf should not be used at all. It is not a registry.
I want to edit /etc/gpm.conf by hand, that is how a unix system works.

If gpm wouldn't have launched debconf on upgrade (on a fresh install,
the questions are all nice and useful), I wouldn't have much problem.
But on an upgrade, when I had a working configuration and it broke it,
it is unacceptable. As is the requirement to modify /etc/gpm.conf with
dpkg-reconfigure. That's plain stupid, please don't do it. Modify the
debconf stuff to create the file if it does not exist, but do not
require it to be modified only via dpkg-reconfigure.