Dale schreef: > Hi, I switched to udev a while back and have some old devfs files > left in /etc. Here is a list: > > >> /etc/devfs.d /etc/devfs.d/.keep /etc/modules.devfs.256 >> /etc/config-archive/etc/udev/scripts/ide-devfs.sh >> /etc/config-archive/etc/udev/scripts/ide-devfs.sh.dist >> /etc/modprobe.devfs /etc/modprobe.devfs.256 /etc/modprobe.devfs.old >> /etc/modules.devfs /etc/devfsd.conf > > > > > Can I get rid of these files and not kill anything? I already > unmerged devfsd though. It just doesn't get rid of the config files. > It would be nice of there was a option to tell it too. >
There is, of course, "an option to tell it to"; you just don't know about it :-) . You might want to have a closer look at the Gentoo Documentation pages, most specifically Gentoo Linux Documentation -- Environment Variables at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2&chap=5 . In any case, the deal is configuration files are protected by default. That means that when you unmerge a program (or merge a new version of the same program), the configuration files will not be automatically overwritten (or deleted, for that matter). This saves you trouble, because it doesn't screw up your config, if you later reinstall the program, or when you update a program that had a complex configuration. However, it also means that things such as what happened to you can happen (config files that you want deleted don't get deleted automatically). But the thing is, such files are important enough that they shouldn't be just deleted like it's nothing. That's the Gentoo design and the Gentoo way; an action like deleting /etc/devfsd can have sweeping consequences if the system is not prepared to pick up the ball with udev-- forcing you to delete it manually is both a way of making sure that you know you did it, and also making sure you know what you're doing before you do it (90% of the users ask the list before taking any action, which is fine-- we *want* people to know what they're doing and have a healthy respect for their own power to bork their system, so good you ask first!) In any case, yes you can override the setting (of *course*, this is Gentoo!) to delete certain (or all) protected files after an unmerge of various programs; but now you have to look up how to do that, and that means you have to read a bit about the consequences of your proposed action before taking it (since you don't know how to take it before you read a bit), and then you have a much better chance of not doing something that's going to come back and bite you in the butt later, but will instead make your system more effective for your usage pattern for the future. Holly -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
