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Re: update-alternatives and /dev/random



Hi!

On Fri, 2011-11-18 at 15:05:44 +0530, harish badrinath wrote:
> Is there a specific reason to continue using update-alternatives for
> providing /dev/random ??

Continue? It was never used before until quite recently.

> Here are my arguments *not* to use update-alternatives to provide
> random and urandom
> (a) Debian/Linux - Does not provide it this way (Context is
> consistency across debian ports)

On GNU/Linux those are kernel devices, on the Hurd given that they are
user space translators it allows for multiple implementations.

> (b) Recursive grep through /etc/ on hurd would fail with the error message
>       "Resource lost"
>     while on Debian/Linux it would succeed (at least it did on my box).

That's because something went wrong on the upgrade from the random-egd
to the random-hurd switch. Check with showtrans what /dev/{u,}random
and /dev/{u,}random-hurd are set to.

regards,
guillem


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