Re: /usr/local stuff [Was Editor and sensible-editor]
Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk> writes:
> Interesting points. However I would suggest that most of the files in
> /etc are about local configurations, and are, in general, not
> shareable. In fact, the FHS defines /etc as being for non-shareable,
You need to be careful about using the word "share" in the context of
FHS. /usr/share is shareable data -- shareable between machines of
different architectures.
/etc is machine specific, which is something else. The hierarchy is
*also* not shareable between machines because applications are not
required to guarantee that configuration information can be shared.
For example, try sharing your network configuration or hostname.
> static data. But what should be done for shareable configuration
> data? Debian uses /etc as the primary place for configuration files,
> be they shareable or not. So maybe we should create an /etc/share
> directory as you suggest. And maybe even an /etc/local directory
> corresponsing to /usr/local?
>
> Maybe I'll bring this up on the FHS list.
/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.
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.
/etc/local or /etc/site might be suitable locat, but I'd like to know
exactly what problem we're trying to solve. Unless I'm mistaken, the
original poster wanted to avoid the Debian packaging system, which
actually already does a good job of allowing you to modify configuration
files in /etc.
We actually used to have a /usr/etc (and I think a /usr/local/etc)
directory, but they were not used much, if at all, and tended to be an
annoyance.
Dan
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