On Tue Mar 18, 2025 at 10:04 AM GMT, Roger Price wrote:
I removed my /etc/updatedb.conf, uninstalled package locate, installed
package plocate, and ran updatedb as root. The command locate is now
defined as /usr/bin/locate -> /etc/alternatives/locate* ->
/usr/bin/plocate*
I didn´t need to modify /etc/updatedb.conf, PRUNEPATHS already allows /mnt .
It looks as if package locate could be retired. Roger
The GNU locate program, built from source package "findutils", was
originally shipped in binary package "findutils", which is an Essential
package. Therefore, everybody had GNU locate/updatedb/updatedb.conf,
until it was split off into binary package "locate" (which is not
Essential). (#448523)
/etc/updatedb.conf was removed around the same time as the package
split. The contents of it migrated into the cron job definition instead.
As it happens, GNU updatedb never actually read updatedb.conf, so it was
mis-named: it was always only sourced by the cron job. (#342713) (Note
that, for plocate, updatedb.conf *is* read by updatedb.)
Making GNU locate optional opened up the opportunity for alternative
implementations of locate/updatedb. For a while there was "mlocate", but
Steinar H. Gunderson wrote "plocate" as a much faster replacement. It's
the de-facto recommended implementation of find/locate for Debian (but
no find/locate implementation is Essential anymore)
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👱🏻 Jonathan Dowland
✎ j...@debian.org
🔗 https://jmtd.net
