Re: administration of initscripts
Bob Proulx wrote:
> Joel Roth wrote:
> > Roger Leigh wrote:
> > > Getting rid of all the /etc/default disable options will be a release
> > > goal for jessie.
> >
> > Good. I'd prefer to be rid of /etc/default entirely!
>
> So you would rather that people edit the /ec/init.d/* scripts
> themselves and manage them as conffiles at upgrade time and merge them
> all at upgrade time? Because AFAIK that is the advantage that
> /etc/default/* brings. It allows a very small declarative file to
> modify the behavior of the /etc/init.d/* imperative progamming.
Thanks. That at least answers the question of why they're there.
> Basically anything that happens at boot time operates through the init
> scripts. If the init scripts offer a declarative way to configure
> themselves then allow those variables to be in /etc/default/*. The
> merging of the default files upon upgrade is much easier than the
> merging of the init scripts upon upgrade. Using /etc/default is very
> simple and straight forward.
>
> > For example, I just learned about /etc/default/keyboard.
> >
> > Why not /etc/keyboard or /etc/keyboard.default? Having a central
> > location for software configuration used to be a feature.
>
> There are 2409 files in my /etc directory. You want them all flat at
> the top level directory? Please, no thank you. I will happily take a
> little bit of organization and put files in subdirectories.
>
> At one time the /etc directory used to be a very large flat directory
> as you are wanting. It had thousands of files in it. It was quite
> difficult to keep track of files there. Moving files into
> subdirectories is a very useful organization.
>
> > At the very least, whenever there is /etc/default/something,
> > /etc/something should have a comment
> >
> > # see /etc/default/something for additional configuration options
>
> Please no. Thousands and thousands of files. And all duplicates of
> files elsewhere. There would be many people who would be confused by
> the extra noise and adding configuration in the wrong file. And
> subsequent bug reports asking to remove those files.
As an extra line to existing config files, it would seem
sensible, but then, as you say, /etc/ is now hierarchical,
so which file would you add the comment to becomes an
intractable question.
Obviously, some other people have thought more deeply about
this than myself. :-)
I suppose the answer is that there is no shortcut to
administering a system than learning the details.
(Well, except the user-friendly cocoonlike existence
that is the default experience under Windows and OSX.)
Joel
> Bob
--
Joel Roth
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