Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl> a tapoté :
> I have a better idea :) What if packages don't leave droppings in my
> home directory in the first place? I have all sorts of dotfiles (and
> even dot-directories) that I never asked for. It's reasonable for a
> program to install a dotfile when I configure it differently from the
> default, but there's no reason to create a dotfile that's identical
> to the default.
Example?
Gimp and many others software creates dotfiles. Because from the start
you configure it (cache size, temp dir).
> In addition to being annoying in themselves,
How?
For their size? Apart from web browser cache, what can be so big?
> such useless dotfiles get in the way when a newer version has
> different defaults or incompatible configuration fields.
Well designed software that change their configuration file should be
able to handle an older configuration file.
> When I do configure a program (if it doesn't have an interactive
> configuration interface), I want to do it by creating a small,
> human-editable file that contains the _differences_ from the
> defaults. So even then I have no use for a copy of the default
> configuration. (If I want an example, I can look in
> /usr/doc/$foo/examples, which is a better place for it than $HOME.)
You want to make your copy from a file in /usr/doc/$foo/examples.
I'm not sure that what most users want to do.
I'm pretty sure that people using kmail are happy to have a GUI to
configure their mail account, for instance.
--
Mathieu Roy
Homepage:
http://yeupou.coleumes.org
Not a native english speaker:
http://stock.coleumes.org/doc.php?i=/misc-files/flawed-english