On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 09:41:23AM +0100, Thomas Hood wrote: > First of all, thanks for uploading the new linuxlogo. It's hardly new. All I did was change the maintainer. That package requires a lot of love. > As you probably know, efforts are being made to eliminate variable files > from the /etc hierarchy. Doing this brings a number of benefits. It > makes it easier to adapt Debian to systems with read-only root > filesystems. It simplifies backup configuration. It also brings Debian > closer to conformance with the latest FHS. Over the past couple of > years many packages have stopped keeping their state information in > files in /etc/; they now keep their state information elsewhere, mostly > under /var/run/ and /var/lib/. I agree. > Linuxlogo is one of the very few packages that, in its default > configuration, still writes to files in /etc/. Specifically, on boot it > writes to /etc/issue.linuxlogo and /etc/issue.linuxlogo.ascii. > > I see no reason why issue.linuxlogo and issue.linuxlogo.ascii have to be > stored in /etc/. It looks to me as if they could reside happily in > /var/run/linuxlogo/. If some applications need to read these files from > the old location then a couple of symlinks can be installed for backward > compatibility. E.g., > > /etc/issue.linuxlogo -> /var/run/linuxlogo/issue > /etc/issue.linuxlogo.ascii -> /var/run/linuxlogo/issue.ascii > > I raised this issue with the former linuxlogo maintainer and he did not > react positively. He said that the issue was of concern only to a small > number of people and that these people could always edit > /etc/init.d/linuxlogo to suit their needs. I wasn't very happy with > this response. I disagree that this matter concerns only a small number > of people since the benefits of having a non-variable /etc/ hierarchy > could be much broader; but even if it did concern only a small number of > people, I don't see why the needs of those people shouldn't be addressed > if they can be addressed without inconveniencing other users. > > So, unless there are technical reasons for keeping those two files in > /etc/ I would like to see them moved. > > What do you think? Amen, brother, is what I think. The package is (at present) in the lovely place that is QA maintenance, which isn't a whole lot better than being orphaned. In the next couple of weeks, if no one else gets onto it, I'll look into bringing the package up to date with upstream, and getting the volatile files out of /etc regards Andrew -- linux.conf.au 2005 - http://lca2005.linux.org.au/ - Birthplace of Tux April 18th to 23rd - http://lca2005.linux.org.au/ - LINUX Canberra, Australia - http://lca2005.linux.org.au/ - Get bitten!
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