[TriLUG] Re: conf files (was re: cdrecord or something like that)

[Lee Fickenscher]

On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 02:51:04AM -0400, Scott G. Hall wrote:
> So you are saying that one set of "defaults" meets every user's hardware
> and package configuration every time?  The reason to have a file hold the
> defaults, is so that the installer program can probe the system and ask
> the user for input to dynamically initialize the configuration on a post-
> install before the user first runs the software.  A post install script
> can not only set such default values, but initialize them to a sane state
> so the software will indeed come up the first time -- no matter what the
> user has installed or configured elsewhere.

No, in fact that is exactly opposite what I was saying, though some of
the conversation was in IRC and some of it was on the list. I was saying
that /etc/default was a bad choice because there is _no_ default that
meets every users needs. I understand the need for a conf file, though
I'd have to say that I don't recall any linux installer asking me any
questions (unless you cound OOo or Mozilla, which I don't). The only
program that I'd ever seen use /etc/default was useradd, and it
specifically mentions /etc/default in its man page.

I think that Hunter made some really good points in IRC re: this topic.
Installing everything in /etc/default is no better than installing
everything in /etc.

I feel that some standard needs to be made (and AFAIK the FHS doesn't
really touch on sub-dirs of /etc except for /etc/opt), but I think that
/etc/default is a bad choice mainly because of semantics.
On any sufficiently loaded system any style of organizaiton will beginx
to get cumbersome, either 1 dir/app or apps with 1 file get no dir while
those with >1 file get a dir.

> But heaven forbid that all such Linux programs install their config files
> in something like /etc/config.d like Sys-V or some BSD systems  ;-) , rather
> than scatter them per a programmer's whim.

Again, installing everything in /etc/config.d is no better than
installing everything in /etc... With 1 exception, that seperates out
system confs from app confs (though at some point it is hard to say what
is system and what is app). And while I'm semi-ranting, /etc is a stinky
choice too... Why not /conf? Then we could have /conf/sys, /conf/app,
and /conf/app/<app_name>. And no, I don't think "because that is the way
it has always been done" is a good reason to continue to do something a
certain way. Use a symlink for /etc while all the programs get rewritten
and we would be golden. Of course, I consider myself a novice so I'm
sure I'm missing something, but at some point something is going to need
to be done about a filesystem that, due to tech advances, is no longer
as usefull as it once was.

-Lee

-- 
Microsoft: for whom the bell tolls...