/var/lib/mlocate does not respect Unix FHS

[Jörg Höhle]

Binary package hint: mlocate

The package findutils once moved /var/lib/locate to /var/cache/locate, witness the following comment in /var/lib/dpkg/info/findutils.postinst:

if [ "$1" = "configure" ]; then
  # up to 4.1.7-2 locatedb was in non-FHS-dir /var/lib/locate
  if dpkg --compare-versions "$2" le-nl "4.1.7-2" ; then
    if [ -f /var/lib/locate/locatedb ]; then
      mv /var/lib/locate/locatedb /var/cache/locate/
      rmdir /var/lib/locate 2>/dev/null || true

The same should apply to mlocate.
I'm using 0.18-2ubuntu1 on a system upgraded from Gutsy to Hardy (release).

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=494966 (which I can't link properly right now due to bug 290802) asserts that moving the mlocate database to /var/cache would be wrong at present because it is not properly regenerated if deleted - at least, not until the updatedb cron job is next run, and before that locate will not work. (I'm not actually entirely sure that this is a good reason, but it's worth mentioning because any move should be coordinated with Debian.)