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Re: What to do about /etc/debian_version



Santiago Vila wrote:
> * Remove this file altogether, since it serves no useful purpose.

The file does serve a useful purpose: it concentrates the debian version
number string that is used in a number of places (issue.net and so on)
into one central place to be modified.

> * Make it a conffile (and therefore change its traditional behaviour).

This is of course the thing I want. 

A behavior change will only occur if the admin edits the file though --
it is not as if making it a conffile is going to at all affect people who
don't modify it.

> * Keep the file as it is, as an exception to FHS, like /etc/mtab which
>   is not a configuration file either.

I think /etc/mtab is on its way out. A 2.4.x kernel with devfs has a
/proc/mounts that actually has a proper line for the root filesystem.
Linking the two files would probably actually work on such a system
without breakage.

Of course /etc/mtab has always bothered me too.. But then /etc has
historically been full of all sorts of garbage that the fsstnd/fhs has
slowly eliminated.

-- 
see shy jo



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