Hi Simon, Thanks for the explanation -- all makes a lot more sense now. I'm much less tempted to rant about how large chunks of /lib should be moved to /etc (which is very good, because I don't suppose I'd be the first to suggest it ;-) ) Simon McVittie <smcv@debian.org> writes: > On 21/11/14 17:07, Philip Hands wrote: >> Is there any way this isn't going to be an enormous surprise to people >> that are used to the way that Debian usually treats /etc? > > I do get your point; editing the (underlying file for the) .service is > unnecessary and undesirable for systemd, and if you blindly do "vi > /etc/.../thing.service" and don't realise you're following a symlink, > that would be a bad idea. Given that, it occurs to me that it might be wise to make these files in /lib read-only. If, when attempting to save the .service file, I'd been presented with a warning about it being read-only I think it would have been enough of a nudge to make me look a bit more closely at what was going on with the files (or not) under /etc. I think I'd have realised that I needed to do a bit more research at that point, since it was when I later noticed the symlinks that the fog lifted. Would there be any down-side to having these files read-only? (I presume that dpkg copes nicely with upgrading files even if read-only, and I don't really see why systemd should care). Even if it didn't actually save the stumbling user from falling over, at least when they start shouting about it the bugs can be closed with "Well, we did try to stop you, but you ignored the read-only safety catch, and shot your foot anyway". Cheers, Phil. -- |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560] HANDS.COM Ltd. |-| http://www.hands.com/ http://ftp.uk.debian.org/ |(| Hugo-Klemm-Strasse 34, 21075 Hamburg, GERMANY
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