Re: /usr/local stuff [Was Editor and sensible-editor]
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> /etc is intended to be the only repository for configuration
> information. It is machine specific. However, machine-specific does
> not mean that the configuration information in /etc cannot be shared
> between machines. This can be done via symbolic links, rdist, or even
> some weird overlay filesystem.
Yes, but I don't want to clobber changes in a default configuration
file by just untaring files saved from an old distribuition over them.
I'm not saying that we should have local configuration files for
_everything_, because that would require an include mechanism where it
does not already exist; but for things like /etc/profile, including a
local configuration file would make life a lot easier and is a trivial
addition, as I demonstrated.
> The point is that by forcing programs to call open() on files in /etc
> instead of somewhere else, the system administrator has lots of
> flexibility. If you have /usr/local/etc and some configuration files
> are there and some are in /etc, you lose flexibility.
I'm not sure what you mean. The idea is that a program would load the
configuration in /etc first, but overlay any existing local
configuration after that. This gives you sane defaults (which may
expand from version to version) while allowing the sysadmin to
override defaults in particular cases.
At this point, whenever a package install says, "Do you want to
overwrite configuration file BLAH?" I nearly always say yes, because
something critical may have been added that I don't know about. I
already got burned by this with pppd once, so I just go the safe
route. Unfortunately, the safe route is also the annoying one,
because it requires me to hand-edit configuration files (or
diff/patch with foresight) every time I install a new version of the
package. There is a better way: local configuration.
Kyle
- --
Kyle R. Rose "They can try to bind our arms,
Laboratory for Computer Science But they cannot chain our minds
MIT NE43-309, 617-253-5883 or hearts..."
http://web.mit.edu/krr/www/ Stratovarius
krose@theory.lcs.mit.edu Forever Free
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