[Tfug] fhs on /var/cache (debian)

[John Gruenenfelder]

On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 05:14:02PM -0700, t takahashi wrote:
>it appears that one cannot actually boot a debian system without a
>populated /var/cache, even if one recreates the hierarchy without the
>regular files, and have everything work.
>
>almost everything does work, but the package system fails with all
>sorts of errors, including messageless segmentation faults (imo there
>is, let's just say, room for improvement in that), each appearing
>after the previous is fixed.
>
>has anybody else tried this?  (i won't bore you with why this matters.)
>
>in other news, imo debian, in keeping debconf in /var/cache, violates
>fhs, but the opinion of the maintainer is that it is discardable data
>and therefore fhs-compliant.
>but that's nothing compared to the package manager not working.

Are you sure it's the package manager or just apt?  Apt is just a frontend to
the package manager, dpkg, and as such is not a "critical" component.  dpkg
does not appear to have any data under /var/cache.

Looking at my system's /var/cache I see only /var/cache/apt and
/var/cache/debconf which have anything to do with packages.

I agree that debconf data seems a little out of place there... Seems like /etc
would be a better place for it.

As for /var/cache/apt, that is entirely transitory data.  Doing an "apt-get
update" should be enough to regenerate it, I believe.  Of course, that doesn't
mean it's okay to bomb horribly when those files are missing...


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--John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, UMass Amherst student
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