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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20130417174441.GA11675@sprite
