Bug#886241: config file directories hidden in /usr/share/lightdm
Control: tags -1 wontfix
Just to expand on what Yves-Alexis said.
On Wed, 3 Jan 2018 13:42:38 +0100 Harald Dunkel <harald.dunkel@aixigo.de> wrote:
> lightdm and lightdm-gtk-greeter hide some config file directories
> in /usr/share/lightdm. According to the debian policy manual 4.1.3.0
> they must reside in /etc.
They do not hide their configuration files. Note that the parts of the
policy that touches on the filesystem layout are only a subset of the
FHS—Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, which reserves the /usr/share
hierarchy for "for all read-only architecture independent data files."
What constitutes data files is entirely up to individual packages.
Having two distinct hierarchies for configuration files eases package
maintenance and allows distributions to ship their defauts in
/usr/share that are usually overridden by those in /etc (maintained by
the end-user and the system administrator). This is exactly what
LightDM does and even mentions in its README file, shipped with the
package and available at /usr/share/doc/lightdm.
Debian defaults are stored in /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/01_debian.conf.
> The man pages don't mention these config files in /usr, i.e. you get
> weird effects due to some undocumented config files.
They shouldn't. From the README file:
> System provided configuration should be stored in `/usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/`.
> System administrators can override this configuration by adding files to
> `/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/` and `/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf`
The fact that it's not mentioned in the man page hints that a user is
not supposed to even know the existence of /usr/share/lightdm, let
alone touch the files in it.
Consider configuration files under /usr/share as read-only (even
though most of them are writable) and a mechanism to provide sane
defaults and fallback. You're rarely supposed to edit them. Of course,
there are some exceptions.
Reply to: