dpkg-divert: override a file in a Debian package (Shallow Thoughts)

dpkg-divert: override a file in a Debian package

I boot Linux in text mode, with all the boot-time messages showing. There are several reasons for this, but one is that I want to be able to see any errors that might arise — boot-time errors aren't otherwise shown to the user.

However, many Linux distros, including Debian and Ubuntu, clear the screen before showing a login prompt, making it impossible to read the last few messages or find any errors.

Some years back, I looked into why this was happening, and found the answer in Stop Clearing My God Damned Console. It comes down to a line in getty@tty1.service: TTYVTDisallocate=yes. Change that to TTYVTDisallocate=no and the terminal will stop clearing before you log in.

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