Subject: debconf: dpkg-reconfigure doesn't reconfigure dependent packages

From: Matthew Exon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:52:31 +0100

Package: debconf
Version: 1.4.46
Severity: normal

I have just this minute discovered, after many years of using Debian,
why it is that dpkg-reconfigure never, never, *ever* seems to do anything
at all.

What's wrong with this picture?

  # dpkg-reconfigure exim4
  #

That's right.  I installed exim4 using "aptitude install exim4".  It asked
me a bunch of questions and installed a bunch of stuff.  I then naively
assumed that if I got one of the settings wrong, I could change it with
dpkg-reconfigure exim4.  You know, like the documentation says.  But I
can't.  I have to dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config - a package I've never
even heard of.

I can't imagine a new user ever figuring this out.  I personally have
been uninstalling and re-installing packages for the last six years
whenever I've had to change a setting.  It's frustrating to think of
how much time I must have wasted.

At the very least, when a user asks to reconfigure a package, and nothing
happens, you might suggest that there are settings they could reconfigure
in any dependent packages.  When a user asks to reconfigure a package that
doesn't have any configuration, that's probably a hint that the user is
confused.  Better would be if it just figured out all the settings
relevant to an application and gave the user the option of diving down
into them in a nice menu.

I also notice that, as far as I can tell, there's no debconf settings
viewer, that would allow a sysadmin to review all the different debconf
settings they've set across all the different packages they've installed.
When trying to debug a problem, I think in terms of functionality, not
in terms of packages.  My particular (original) problem is that I want to
switch from mbox to maildir.  There are about a dozen packages where that
setting might conceivably be set - I have absolutely no idea which ones to
try.  I just want to be able to search for a setting that matches "*mail*".
And you'll notice that the vast majority of the package names I might have
to look at ("exim4", "dovecot", and their dependants) don't match that glob.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-2-k7
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages debconf depends on:
ii  debconf-i18n                  1.4.46     full internationalization support 
ii  perl-base                     5.8.4-6    The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbis

-- debconf information:
* debconf/priority: medium
* debconf/frontend: Dialog