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 * mandb: [http://bugs.debian.org/133917 #133917] is fixable with a trigger; ColinWatson has a patch.

A dpkg trigger is a facility that allows events caused by one package but of interest to another package to be recorded and aggregated, and processed later by the interested package. This feature simplifies various registration and system-update tasks and reduces duplication of processing.

(NB: Triggers are intended for events that occur during package installation, not events that occur in general operation.)

For full documentation about dpkg triggers, see /usr/share/doc/dpkg/triggers.txt.gz , as well as the deb-triggers, and dpkg-trigger man pages.

This page will be used to track triggerisation of parts of Debian.

  • update-menus: patch in [http://bugs.debian.org/473467 #473467]

  • update-initramfs: Triggers are supported from version 0.92 on.
  • scrollkeeper: Triggerization would avoid ugly hacks in d-i, and speed up upgrades. TODO (However, scrollkeeper may be deprecated soon.)
  • tetex: maintainers plan to use triggers to speed up greatly
  • ldconfig: patch in [http://bugs.debian.org/447609 #447609], but ldconfig's caching has improved in the meantime, may not be necessary

  • apt: Triggers are supported from version 0.7.7 on. Additional changes allow triggers to run less often, see [http://bugs.debian.org/473461 #473461]

  • dpkg: Triggers are supported from version 0.14.17 on.
  • update-mime, update-mime-database: Estimated speedup of 1 minute for desktop installs by triggerizing these. TODO
  • update-icon-caches: Could be triggerized to eliminate dh_icons and improve icon cache handling robustness. TODO
  • update-desktop-database: Could be triggerized to eliminate dh_desktop. TODO
  • install-info: Could be triggerized to simplify some maintainer scripts. Would require some redesign of the program. TODO
  • insserv: Unknown if triggers could be used for this.
  • xine-lib: Triggers could be used to update xine-lib front ends' desktop files. See [http://bugs.debian.org/472870 #472870]

  • fc-cache: Candidate to use triggers. TODO
  • update-grub: When many kernel packages are installed/removed in one go, update-grub is called many times unnecessarily. Ubuntu has patched grub for this, we'd need to adapt that patch to grub2. TODO
  • metainit: (if it will be continued) Could be triggerized to eliminate dh_metainit TODO
  • flash-kernel: Could be triggerised to avoid multiple writes to flash in a single dpkg run. (Robustness is a concern.) TODO
  • mandb: [http://bugs.debian.org/133917 #133917] is fixable with a trigger; ColinWatson has a patch.