On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Yamakaky <yamakaky@yamaworld.fr> wrote:
Hi
/etc/{group,gshadow,passwd,shadow} could be removed as the base users and groups are already created by the upstream sysusers.d files. The arch-specific ones (like bin or daemon) could be created by /usr/lib/sysusers.d/archlinux.conf.
I don't think it would work. On a newly installed system, sure, all is well. But then, imagine that the system administrator, me, creates a few uses: they are inserted into /etc/passwd and friends. Then, a filesystem update wants to add a new system user, so it updates the file /usr/lib/sysusers.d/archlinux.conf. The .install script runs systemd-sysusers and... nothing happens, because this program only creates the file when there is not there in the first place. With the current situation, pacman will create a /etc/passwd.pacnew file. I am expected to notice that and do the merge manually.
The others /etc/ files could be moved to /usr/share/etc/ and copied as needed to /etc using tmpfiles.d files.
The problem is similar. Once I have modified an existing file in /etc, what will happen when a new version of the file comes from the package. Will it not be installed? Or will it overwrite my own file? Maybe you can convice systemd-tmpfiles to copy the file to /etc/watever.pacsave, I don't know. But then, where is the advantage? It looks to me like a lot of work and risk to break things for no advantage. -- Rodrigo