- in the <prgn>postinst</prgn> script. Futhermore, and <em>this
- is very important</em>, the library must be placed before the
- symlink pointing to it in the <tt>.deb</tt> file. This is so
- that by the time <prgn>dpkg</prgn> comes to install the
- symlink (overwriting the previous symlink pointing at an older
- version of the library) the new shared library is already in
- place. Currently the way to ensure the ordering is done
- properly is to install the library in the appropriate
- <tt>debian/tmp/.../lib</tt> directory before creating the
- symlink, by putting the commands in the <tt>debian/rules</tt>
- in the appropriate order. Whether this has been done
- correctly can be checked by performing an <tt>ls -f</tt>.
+ in the <prgn>postinst</prgn> script. Futhermore, older
+ versions of the package management system required the library
+ must be placed before the symlink pointing to it in the
+ <tt>.deb</tt> file. This is so that by the time
+ <prgn>dpkg</prgn> comes to install the symlink (overwriting
+ the previous symlink pointing at an older version of the
+ library) the new shared library is already in place.
+ Unfortunately, this was not not always possible, since it
+ highly depends on the behaviour of the filesystem. Some
+ filesystems (such as reisefs) will reorder the files so it
+ doesn't matter in what order you create them. In newer
+ versions of <prgn>dpkg</prgn>, this is handled automatically.