Alexander Rødseth <[email protected]> writes: > Hi, > > > 2012/7/31 Dieter Plaetinck <[email protected]>: >> there's a bunch of configuration management tools written for this use case >> already. >> like chef, puppet, ansible. many of these concerns are relatively easy to >> abstract for multiple distributions, >> so writting a new tool that only targets Arch is not a good idea imho. > > All of the tools you mention requires several dependencies, cover > completely different use cases from what I wrote about and are > needlessly complex for what I had in mind, even ansible. In addition, > it's not like the space for configuration tools is crowded and out of > axes and variables to compete on. In short, I completely disagree with > you on this. (And this is not a case of NIH). More momentum is needed, > not less.
Actually, those tools *do* cover the use cases you wrote about, and even if they didn't it would be silly to write your own configuration file format. > As I understand, you have resigned as a developer and is not > interested in working on this or something like this in any case. Do you think that nullifies the value of his feedback? >> an installation of any system should put only the basic system in place >> (incl. a config management tool), >> everything else should be done by configuration management. >> this makes it easier to alter the configuration of a machine long after it >> has been installed. > > I think this is nice in theory, but a failure in practice. For > example, if someone wishes to change all the partitions from ReiserFS > to ext4, they reinstall. Yes, it's possible to do it in other ways, > but what a cludge of a configuration manager that would be. People > reinstall and this should be made easier. Focusing on managing the > post-installation configuration has proved to result in > distro-specific configuration tools that are overkill compared to just > editing a configuration text file and get it done with. Making the > installation quick and easy, without users repeating themselves, is > what should be done. Could you point to some examples of distro-specific configuration tools that you think are overkill? > > >> configuration management should not be tied to only the installation process. > > Configuration management should only be tied to the installation > process. For the rest, there's /etc. I have a feeling that you are using "configuration" in a broader sense, or in a different sense than Dieter is here, there's some more extrapolation in my other reply in this thread. -- Jeremiah Dodds github : https://github.com/jdodds freenode : exhortatory
