Lintian ReportsBETA

postrm-removes-alternative

update-alternatives --remove <alternative> foo is called in the postrm maintainer script.

Instead, update-alternatives --remove should be called in prerm.

Th present command will not work as intended. When postrm runs, foo was already deleted. update-alternatives will then ignore the program while constructing the list of available alternatives.

If the symbolic link in /etc/alternatives then still points at foo, update-alternatives will not recognize it. It will then mark the link as site-specific.

Going forward, the symbolic link will no longer be updated automatically. It will be left dangling until update-alternatives --auto <alternative> is run by hand.

For more information please consult:

The tag is present in Lintian version 2.114.163. That is the most recent version we know about.

We use semantic versions. The patch number is a commit step indicator relative to the 2.114.0 release tag in our Git repository.

You can find the detection logic for this version at commit f5107b6. For merge requests, please use the latest version in the Lintian check scripts.

Visibility: warning

Renamed from:
  • maintainer-script-should-not-use-update-alternatives-remove

The following 157 source packages in the archive triggered the tag 200 times (in any Lintian version).

We found 1 overrides. The tag performed 100% of the time.