Frequently Asked Questions about base-files =========================================== * Questions about "profile.d": Q. Why does Debian not have a "profile.d" directory, like other distributions? A. Because no Debian package needs it. Debian policy says: "A program must not depend on environment variables to get reasonable defaults". This policy has been very successful so far. If the default install had a profile.d, people might think it's ok to use it for a Debian package, when in fact policy does not support such thing. Q. Ok, but I still think it would still be a nice thing to have, would not make sense to have a profile.d by default, even if no Debian package uses it? A. No. As explained before, there is the risk of assuming that it's "officially supported". If you need a profile.d directory, you may still create one in your machine and modify your /etc/profile accordingly to enable it. Since this is a configuration file, its contents will be preserved in upgrades. Q. Ok, but if I do that I will have to merge my changes every time the /etc/profile provided by base-files changes. A. That should not be a big problem. The default /etc/profile provided by base-files is quite minimal on purpose, and it is not expected to change drastically from one Debian release to the next one. * Questions about /etc/issue and /etc/debian_version: Q. I upgraded my system to the testing distribution and now my /etc/issue says "testing/unstable". Should it not read "testing"? Q. I upgraded my system to the unstable distribution and now my /etc/issue says "testing/unstable". Should it not read "unstable"? A. You obviously do not understand how the testing distribution works. Packages uploaded for unstable reach testing after ten days, provided they are built for every released architecture, have no RC-bugs and their dependencies may be met in testing. You should consider the testing and unstable distributions as two sides of the same coin. Since the base-files package in testing was initially uploaded for unstable, the only sensible /etc/issue to have is one that is both valid for testing and unstable, hence "testing/unstable". Q. Ok, but how do I know which distribution I'm running? A. If you are running testing or unstable, then /etc/debian_version is not a reliable way to know that anymore. Looking at the contents of your /etc/apt/sources.list file is probably a much better way. * Other questions: Q. Why isn't license "foo" included in common-licenses? A. I delegate such decisions to the policy group. If you want to propose a new license you should make a policy proposal to modify the paragraph in policy saying "Packages distributed under the UCB BSD license, Artistic license, GNU GPL and GNU LGPL should refer to the files in /usr/share/common-licenses". The way of doing this is explained in the debian-policy package. As usual, you should always take a look at already reported bugs against debian-policy before submitting a new one. Q. I upgraded from woody to sarge. Should my system be FHS-compliant now? A. Achieving FHS compliance by upgrading would be tricky and prone to error in certain cases, so it is not a goal of base-files, nor it is planned to be. By default, some "mandatory" directories (like /opt, /srv or /media) are only created in the first install (performed by debootstrap), to keep the code as simple as possible, follow the principle of least surprise on upgrades, and also to give people the freedom to remove those directories without them being created again when base-files is upgraded. Therefore, if you are running any sort of compliance tests, you should do it on newly installed systems only. Santiago Vila