Kay Sievers (k...@vrfy.org) said: 
> The hwdb is drop-in directory based, which means:
>   - additionally installed data overwrites shipped data
>   - stuff with the same file name in /etc/ disables stuff in /usr/lib/
> 
> Users can just install update packages, or add their own files, which
> will not conflict with the default shipped data.

That's really not what we need, though - we have standing requests
in That Other OS for regular updates of the hardware database as used
by the tools, and having to spin systemd for this is way overkill.

> > 1) Duplicates the data.
> >   1a) Will the two databases be kept in sync?  How will that happen?
> 
> No. In the long run the old textual files will no longer be used. It
> was a really bad idea from the start to parse several megabytes of
> ever-growing text files for every query submitted; it was showing up
> as CPU spikes in all sort of profiles. That model of implementing
> low-level operating system tools should just not be continued in the
> future. The systemd hwdb data can be queried almost for free.

Realistically, it's new textual files, replacing old textual files, which
are then compiled into a binary file. I'm not sure why there's the
intermediate step of a second textual format, but there is.

> > 2) Breaks the hwdata-vs-code separation that was created earlier.
> > What were the reasons of the separation, and why are they no longer
> > applicable now?
> 
> It's just not needed because of the /usr/lib/ etc/ and drop-in
> directory overwrite logic, that works for all other default vs.
> custom/update settings.

That method implies the administrator wants to do the update without
touching the code - what we have now is the *distributor* wants to
do the update without touching the code. And for that case, packaging
it seperately is simpler.

> It could go into another package when things have settled down, but
> there will be lots of other data in the same database shipped by
> systemd itself, like keymaps, power settings whitelists, which we
> cannot really and should not move out to a generic package.

... which, again, is not something you want to be updating the main
systemd package all the time for.

Bill
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