Ports recommending other ports

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Feb 13, 2009, at 01:10, Bradley Giesbrecht wrote:

>>> I don't know how macports handles upgrades with respect to etc  
>>> file changes but  gentoo has a nice "etc-update" program that  
>>> allows you replace, merge or ignore etc config files. This CAN be  
>>> important. But gentoo portage is also managing the "world" and  
>>> thankfully we have Apple taking care of basics.
>>>
>>> I mean, merging etc files remotely can be hair raising.  
>>> Especially when gentoo will upgrade everyFREAKINGthing if you  
>>> don't tell it not to and there are etc updates for like 30 files  
>>> from fstab on.
>>> Who wants to recompile gcc for every minor update?
>>> And have it go wrong?
>>> Remotely?
>>
>> MacPorts does nothing to help the user upgrade their config files  
>> in /etc. If a port is nice, it installs template config files the  
>> user can copy. If not, it installs the config file with its real  
>> name so that any port upgrade will wipe out the user's changes...
>
> Ouch. And did I mention OUCH.
>
> Damn, how about moving same file names in ${prefix}/etc out of the  
> way with a timestamp appended?
>
> Something!
>
> That's really a possibility?
>
> Maybe it's possible and just doesn't happen. Man, that scares me.

If you find a port that installs a config file that the user is  
expected to edit with the actual name the program expects to find,  
that is a bug, and you should file a ticket for that port in the  
issue tracker so that the issue can be corrected.