Subject: base-files: /etc/debian_version exists after migrating from debian

From: Gregory Nowak <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2017 12:44:46 -0700

Package: base-files
Version: 8+devuan7
Severity: minor

Dear Maintainer,
after upgrading from debian wheezy to devuan jessie, /etc/debian_version still exists with the contents "7.11". This file is apparently still referenced somewhere when doing apt-get dist-upgrade. This issue is discussed at:
<https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/thread/20170418.054720.34c2db04.en.html>

*** Reporter, please consider answering these questions, where appropriate ***

   * What led up to the situation?
Migrating from debian wheezy to devuan jessie.

   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?
Leaving the file in place seems to cause no harm. Removing it causes the message "cat /etc/debian_version: no such file or directory" to appear when running apt-get dist-upgrade. Fresh installs of devuan don't have a /etc/debian_version, and don't exhibit this problem.

   * What was the outcome of this action?
See above.

   * What outcome did you expect instead?
No /etc/debian_version should exist after migrating to devuan, and the lack of this file shouldn't produce error messages when running apt-get dist-upgrade.

*** End of the template - remove these template lines ***

-- System Information:

Architecture: i686

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages base-files depends on:
ii  mawk [awk]  1.3.3-17

base-files recommends no packages.

base-files suggests no packages.

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/debian_version f627c6a8a6325d8f495a49568e4b2a79 [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'/etc/debian_version f627c6a8a6325d8f495a49568e4b2a79'
/etc/dpkg/origins/debian 731423fa8ba067262f8ef37882d1e742 [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'/etc/dpkg/origins/debian 731423fa8ba067262f8ef37882d1e742'
/etc/issue changed [not included]

-- no debconf information