On Mon, 5 Aug 2024 at 08:39, Helmut Grohne <hel...@subdivi.de> wrote: > > Hi Luca, > > On Fri, Aug 02, 2024 at 04:17:43PM +0100, Luca Boccassi wrote: > > Validating is of course necessary. If the worry is around changing the > > dependencies of base-files, I would be happy to carry the dependency on > > a new os-release binary package in init-system-helpers, which is > > already Essential: yes. I already did something similar in Bookworm to > > force all installations to become usrmerged, and I do not recall issues > > with the bootstrapping order. This would be even easier in practice as > > the new package would have a single file, no maintainer scripts, no > > dependencies and no build dependencies. Would that solve your concerns? > > No. You need to decide whether /etc/os-release is to be essential or > not. > > If it is, then your proposed dependency in init-system-helpers does not > cut it, because I can simply upgrade base-files before > init-system-helpers and then my /etc/os-release is gone violating Debian > policy. A more reliable mechanism for transitioning essential files is > required.
Sure, but violating debian policy is something that happens when it's needed or worth doing, and then it's dealt with if it actually becomes a problem. In _practice_ I doubt that would create actual issues, given it requires manually hold back the update of one but not the other. In practice, a synchronized upload should be more than enough to avoid real issues. This is something that could be established with QA effort once it's implemented as POC.
