On Tue, 31 May 2011 10:10:01 +0200, Neil Bothwick wrote about Re:
[gentoo-user] Cleaning redundant configuration files:

>On Mon, 30 May 2011 23:08:08 +0100, David W Noon wrote:
>
>> You have just touched on an annoyance of unmerge, in that it does not
>> clean up configuration files that have been modified.  It removes
>> files that are still in the same state as when the package was
>> emerged, but not those modified by the user.  I don't see how user
>> changes make the file more important than would be in its vanilla
>> state.
>
>It doesn't remove *any* files that have been modified,

Erm ... that's what I wrote, above.  [That is, of course, predicated on
the assumption that installing Package A will not modify configuration
files owned by Package B, and vice-versa: all post-installation
modifications are performed by the user.]

>the reasons
>systems used to get cluttered with orphaned .la files. The logic is
>quite simple, if it is not the file portage installed with the
>package, it should not be uninstalled with the package.

Why should that be so?  If the user has modified a configuration file
after the previous installation and then unmerges the package, a repeat
of the configuration changes is all that is required to reinstate it if
the package is removed in its entirety.  The user might even be daring
and take a backup of the file(s) in question.

To repeat myself: I do not see a customized configuration file as being
any more important than a vanilla one.  If I understand a configuration
file well enough to customize it once, I remain capable of customizing
it again after a reinstall.

I should be clear here: a reinstall means "from new, with no previous
version currently installed" and is quite distinct from an upgrade or
rebuild.

>There are
>times when some sort of --force-remove option to remove both these and
>files in CONFIG_PROTECTed directories would be useful.

Again, what I wrote.

I think we largely agree on this issue.
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
dwnoon@... (David W Noon)
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*