* keep an origin branch with the files debian ships Not sure quite how to do this yet, it seems it would need to clone the repo, switch to origin, and commit, then push back to /etc, and either merge origin or commit a second time. And do this after apt runs only, of course. Alternatively, commit in /etc, then clone the repo, switch to origin, and cherry pick the commit into origin? Of coure, unless etckeeper is installed by debootstrap or thereabouts, you won't have a true pristine origin branch. * split the repo One way to split it would be to put private (non-world-readable) files in one repo, and public in another. This would need either symlink farming or git "fake bare" repos, both of which are not pleasant, yet. Another way would be to allow splitting out subdirs into their own repos. This is already doable, would just need modifying the pre-install and post-instlal stuff (ie, it needs to commit in the subdirs too). Using mr would be a possibility.. * Figure out what packages were acted on, and include that info in the commit message Done for dpkg, but not for other package managers like rpm. * bzr: Somehow support etckeeper's pre-commit hook.