Randy McMurchy wrote:
Alex,
I'm not sure what it is that bothers you so much about the Samba
instructions in the BLFS book. Recently, you suggested that we drop
Samba from the book because the instructions were inadequate.
I was appalled at this suggestion from you, who I respect and judge
as a reasonable man. I tried my best to rewrite the instructions to
address the (very reasonable) suggestions you made at the time.
After those changes, your comments were along the lines of "the
instructions are now satisfactory".
However, now you have entered new bugs into bugzilla. I addressed
one of them. In my opinion, satisfactorily. You have however,
elected to reopen the bug, and add even newer changes. I feel this
is going to be a never-ending cycle. So I closed the bug. Again.
The main objection was that to the words "for non-English locales".
Alex, the base Samba instructions meet the needs for 99% of the users
who will install the Samba package. For those that the instructions
do not meet their needs, well, these individuals should be able to
configure a Samba installation without word for word instructions
from BLFS.
Alex, men have written entire *books* about Samba. You cannot
reasonably expect us to summarize these books in a few short pages in
the BLFS book.
The use and configuration of Samba has endless possibilities,
certainly, you cannot expect us to entertain all these possibilities
in the book.
BLFS provides a basic set of instructions, that for me anyway, allows
sharing of Windows volumes to Linux, Linux volumes to Windows and
the use of Windows shared printers from Linux.
Topics such as using Samba as an NT domain controller, cannot, and
as best as would think at this moment, will not ever be addressed in
the BLFS book.
This _was_ addressed in the book some time ago, and thus isn't impossible:
http://archive.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs-museum/5.0/BLFS-BOOK-5.0-HTML/server/samba.html
(I don't ask to re-add this information.)
Again, think about the fact the men have written *entire books*
about Samba setup and configuration.
I am hoping that you will still offer your valuable advice and
wisdom in making BLFS better, however, within reason. Trying to
address every individual possibility will never be the focus of the
Samba instructions.
Please understand, you know the package very well, and you can
use it to take advantage of every advanced capability the package
affords. Most folks don't need, nor care, about those advanced
capabilities.
I'll close my message with a question to you, Alex. Do you *really*
think that someone that needs the advanced capabilities that the
Samba package provides, *needs* help from the BLFS book?
Tough question. The book already provides help by linking to external
documentation. I think that for _complex_ cases, e.g. for a LDAP-backed
PDC, this is certainly better than trying to describe everything in the
book, and no other help is needed from the book in such cases.
For _simple_ cases, instructions in the book should "just work",
including (IMHO) the "configuration" section that should provide a full
working example configuration for a concrete task. The question is
(still) what's simple and what's complex. I think that "standalone
client-only" configuration should be "simple".
Up to yesterday, the book essentially stated that everything is possible
if you have a text editor for editing smb.conf, a template file (that
IMHO looks much better after removal of all comments and disabled lines)
and a copy of the manual, but "complete configuration is well beyond the
scope of the BLFS book". Is it true for the _simplest_ cases (e.g. a
client-only configuration just to satisfy kdebase dependency)?
Apparently not, because you (correctly) said that the instructions in
the book together with the almost-default smb.conf allow you "sharing of
Windows volumes to Linux, Linux volumes to Windows and the use of
Windows shared printers from Linux" and because all pieces of the
minimal client-only smb.conf are already in the book.
--
Alexander E. Patrakov
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