[clue-tech] help with udev on Debian

[David L. Anselmi]

Angelo Bertolli wrote:
[...]
> Well turns out that simply copying the files back to their original 
> places doesn't work, and the system is so unbootable, it can't even 
> mount the root filesystem.  Oh well, guess I'll spend less time 
> reinstalling than fighting this.

Yeah, like I tell the (non-computer) engineers I work with, udev isn't 
magic but it works just like it ;-)

Sounds like your system boots, but panics because it can't mount root. 
That's not a udev problem directly, but udev does run initramfs so 
perhaps your udev problems caused that to fail.

Regarding your original question about udev conffiles, apt-get install 
--reinstall won't reinstall them.  Pity, there ought to be a way to get 
a package reconfigured easily.  But once it's configured (even if it is 
removed) it won't be reconfigured until you do an upgrade.

The only way around this is to do a purge and reinstall.  Then you can 
copy over your old config files.

I moved /etc/udev elsewhere, did a purge and then a reinstall.  There 
were some differneces between what I moved out of the way and what udev 
reinstalled.  But those were put there by other packages and would have 
been left alone by the purge.

I didn't try rebooting with udev in an uncertain state (well, removed 
with other packages broken).  But after reinstall and moving back my 
config files everything is fine.  Good luck with your reinstall.

Dave