conffile prompts on upgrades

James Troup <email address hidden> writes:

> I got modified conffile prompts on a feisty -> gutsy beta upgrade today
> on two separate machines. I very much doubt either user had actually
> modified either /etc/default/cdrecord or /etc/default/rscsi.

I'm surprised by this, because in feisty, the cdrecord package is a
dummy package, containing only symlinks to wodim:

root@faui49b:~# dpkg -L cdrecord
/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/man
/usr/share/man/man1
/usr/share/doc
/usr/bin
/usr/share/man/man1/readcd.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/cdrecord.1.gz
/usr/share/doc/cdrecord
/usr/bin/readcd
/usr/bin/cdrecord

There clearly isn't even a /etc/default/cdrecord file shipped. So I
wonder where does the /etc/default/cdrecord file come from? What was
initially on the system? Was the machine perhaps upgraded from edgy or
dapper?

--
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4

Same happened here, on "update-manager -d" from Feisty to Gutsy. The window showing the difference was empty. In a terminal I tried to diff the files, but I could only find /etc/default/cdrecord.dpkg-new

The machine was previously updated from Edgy.

Happened again on another machine. There was no /etc/default/cdrecord before upgrading. I am pretty sure I never deleted it manually either.

Setting up cdrecord (10:2.01.01a33-0ubuntu2) ...
Configuration file `/etc/default/cdrecord'
 ==> Deleted (by you or by a script) since installation.
 ==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version.
   What would you like to do about it ? Your options are:
    Y or I : install the package maintainer's version
    N or O : keep your currently-installed version
      D : show the differences between the versions
      Z : background this process to examine the situation
 The default action is to keep your current version.
*** cdrecord (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ?
*** cdrecord (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? y
Installing new version of config file /etc/default/cdrecord ...
Configuration file `/etc/default/rscsi'
*** rscsi (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ?
*** rscsi (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? y
Installing new version of config file /etc/default/rscsi ...

So the diff option would have displayed the whole file as being added?

Note my log above says "==> Deleted (by you or by a script) since installation."

On the first machine (comment 2) I tried the diff option and it gave no output. Not 100% sure the two machines had the identical issue, but I would guess so.