Re: when move /usr/doc -> /usr/share/doc ?

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On 1 Jul 1999, Chris Webb wrote:

> Branden Robinson <branden@ecn.purdue.edu> writes:
> 
> > On Wed, Jun 30, 1999 at 05:21:05PM +0000, Roland Rosenfeld wrote:
> > > a) Does dpkg support installing through a symlink?
> > 
> > No.
> 
> Out of interest, what goes wrong, and under what circumstances? This
> machine has worked fine (with the slightly drastic /usr -> / symlink and
> a read-only rofs) through a great many apt-get upgrades.

Yes, and this is what is done in GNU/Hurd as well (usr -> /).

The problem is that once that you have forced dpkg to "follow" a symlink
to install a package (which is perfectly possible and it sort of works),
it is nearly impossible to upgrade to another version of the same package
having the files in the real destination. dpkg is unable to see that the
files in the "wrong" place that followed the symlink and the files in the
"right" place which do not need to follow the symlink (or viceversa)  are
the same and get extremely confused.

This is why we should try not to make any symlink "for FHS compliance".
They could confuse dpkg a lot in the future.

Thanks.

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