debconf is a software utility for performing system-wide configuration tasks on Unix-like operating systems. It is developed for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, and is closely integrated with Debian's package management system, dpkg. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Unix. ... Debian, organized by the Debian Project, is a widely used distribution of free software developed through the collaboration of volunteers from around the world. ... A Linux distribution, or GNU/Linux distribution, or less formally Linux distro, is a Unix-like operating system comprising software components such as the Linux kernel, the GNU toolchain, and assorted free, open source, and possibly proprietary software. ... dpkg is the base of the Debian package management system. ...

When packages are being installed, debconf asks the user questions which determine the contents of the system-wide configuration files associated with that package. After package installation, it is possible to go back and change the configuration of a package by using the dpkg-reconfigure program, or another program such as Synaptic. A screenshot of Synaptic. ...

The design of debconf allows for front-ends for answering configuration questions to be added in a modular way, and there exist several, such as one for the terminal, one for KDE, one for GNOME, etc. In their most general meanings, the terms front end and back end refer to the initial and the end stages of a process flow. ... KDE (K Desktop Environment) is a free desktop environment and development platform built with Trolltechs Qt toolkit. ... A typical garden gnome. ...

The original implementation of debconf is in Perl. During the development of debian-installer (the new installer used for Sarge), a new implementation in C was developed, which is named cdebconf. The new implementation is currently only used in the installer, but is intended to eventually replace the original entirely. Perl, also Practical Extraction and Report Language (a backronym, see below), is an interpreted procedural programming language designed by Larry Wall. ... Sarge is a codename for the Debian GNU/Linux 3. ... The C Programming Language, Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the original edition that served for many years as an informal specification of the language The C programming language is a standardized imperative computer programming language developed in the early 1970s by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie for use on the...

External links

• Manpage of DEBCONF
• Manpage of DPKG-RECONFIGURE
• Request for adoption
• Maintainer's web site, with screenshots (outdated)