Warn and ask before clobbering manually edited xorg.conf

[Matt Zimmerman]

Binary package hint: restricted-manager

On my system, disabling the nvidia driver reverted to the ati driver(!) rather than nv. It seemed to dump a new configuration based on debconf values, which in my case were out of date because I had hand-edited my configuration file. I had switched from an ATI card to an NVIDIA card, and updated my configuration file by hand rather than using dpkg-reconfigure. This means that the debconf values were for ATI, and I assume restricted-manager just generated a configuration based on those.

I expect this would probably affect other users with hand-edited configuration files. restricted-manager must either preserve those changes (preferred), or refuse to change the config file if it has been hand-edited (minimally).

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I'll go with refusing to edit manually changed configurations for beta. dexconf and dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg clobber xorg.conf and only rely on debconf data, so fixing this to parse and modify xorg.conf is indeed a lot of work.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

We could consider using the dislayconfig module from guidance for the editing of the xorg.conf file. It seems to do a reasonable job to edit a xorg.conf file without overwriting users customizations. Its python and used in kde-guidance as their default xorg configuration tools since dapper (maybe even before).

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Thanks Michael, I filed this as bug 92836.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

 restricted-manager (0.10) feisty; urgency=low
 .
   * RestrictedManager/{fglrx,nvidia}.py: Call dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
     instead of dexconf directly, to take advantage of its special magic. This
     also takes care of writing backup files, so disable our own backup file
     writing. (LP: #91036)
   * RestrictedManager/{fglrx,nvidia}.py: Set the 'seen' flags of the modified
     debconf questions, to reduce the chance of dpkg-reconfigure clobbering
     them.
   * RestrictedManager/{fglrx,nvidia}.py: Add some logging to
     /var/log/restricted-manager.log to debug currently open bugs. This will be
     removed again later.
   * restricted-manager: If there are no applicable handlers at all, display an
     info message box that the hardware does not need any restricted drivers
     and exit. (LP: #92485)
   * restricted-manager, RestrictedManager/core.py: Move reboot notification
     function into core.notify_reboot_required(), so that we can use in the
     handlers, too.
   * RestrictedManager/{fglrx,nvidia}.py: Trigger reboot notification on
     enabling, too. (LP: #92684)
   * Add modalias_override/fglrx_supported: Script to parse supported product
     IDs out of /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fglrx_drv.so. Thanks to Johan
     Kiviniemi!
   * RestrictedManager/modalias.append: Replace the 'catch all ATI graphics
     cards' line with the product ID list generated by fglrx_supported, so that
     the fglrx driver is not offered any more on models it doesn't support.
     (LP: #92498)
   * Renamed RestrictedManager/nvidia.py to RestrictedManager/xorg_driver.py
     and replaced the few nvidia-specific bits with ctor argument variables.
   * Reimplement nvidia.py and fglrx.py as XorgDriver subclasses, since they
     shared 95% of code.
   * RestrictedManager/xorg_driver.py: Set xserver-xorg/autodetect_video_card
     to false when enabling a driver, so that xserver-xorg's postinst does not
     clobber our freshly selected restricted driver. Enable it again when
     disabling the restricted driver.
   * po/POTFILES.in: Add missing fglrx.py and xorg_driver.py.
   * restricted-manager, RestrictedManager/core.py: Add new DefaultHandler
     method can_change() which checks if r-m can change this driver at all. If
     not, show an error message with an explanation.
   * RestrictedManager/xorg_driver.py: Add can_change() which checks for a
     modified xorg.conf. (LP: #92690)