On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 1:09 AM, Marco d'Itri <m...@linux.it> wrote: > On Oct 04, Thibaut VARENE <vare...@debian.org> wrote: > >> Running dist-upgrade on my sid box today, I ended up with an unbootable >> system >> because udev apparently freaks out if inotify support is not enabled. > This is documented in README.Debian.
I wasn't aware that Debian policy required users to read /usr/share/doc/*/README.Debian* As a matter of fact, I'm glad it doesn't. On my system that's already 121 files. FWIW, I saw the requirement before sending the bugreport. The reason I did send a bugreport nonetheless is because it's a regression from previously working behavior, and thus a user unaware of the contents of README.Debian (such as me prior to the failed upgrade) wouldn't expect this to be considered "OK" without prior *explicit* notice... >> What's more, previous versions of udev worked just fine >> without inotify support, so the new behaviour is a regression. > The need for inotify has always been documented, if it half-worked well > enough for your needs then good for you but this is not a bug. It's a packaging bug, considering the above, but oh well, I think you just finished to convince me that udev is an utter PoS and I should just go back to using plain old static /dev :P >> Finally, the package should check *BEFORE INSTALLING* whether mandatory >> features are present on the system, instead of installing and failing later >> on, >> leaving the user with an unbootable system. I had to downgrade to lenny's >> udev >> to get my system back to life. > So by downgrading you may also have broken your system in ways I do not > want to think about. Downgrades are not supported, please do not blame > me if your system will break in the future. I won't. I know udev is crap. Again the bugreport is about a packaging issue. Before overwriting the old working udev, the package should have told me "it's not going to work, moron". FWIW I can think off hand of two easy ways to check kernel configuration: grep /boot/config and zgrep /proc/config.gz (as well as using scripts/extract-ikconfig from kernel tree). They may not always work but it's better than *nothing*. >> Cannot start udevd. (rc=4) >> dpkg: error processing udev (--configure): >> subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 4 > This does not look like "installing". > It would be pretty dumb to reboot a system after udev failed to install. It would be pretty dumb to overwrite a working binary with a non-working one. > I do not believe that it is useful to explicitly check for every kernel > feature udev may depend on because: > - it works with all Debian kernels I'm sure you're aware that udev is priority *important*, while linux-image-* is priority *optional*? I'm sure you do not plan on restricting Debian users' freedom of choosing their kernel? > - the list is documented, and building kernels without these features is > silly anyway It's not. A kernel without inotify support is perfectly reasonable on some server setups such as the one I'm using it with. > - installation will fail if something really important is missing leaving the system in a broken state. YAY, that's a win. > - I am not even sure that it is possible to check for e.g. signalfd by > only using a shell script and rewriting preinst in C would probably > be impractical See above. I'm not bothering reopening the bug, even though I hope I've convinced you it's actually is one, if only a wishlist item. -- Thibaut VARENE http://www.parisc-linux.org/~varenet/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
