[arch-dev-public] [ANNOUNCE] initscripts-2012.07.3

[Tom Gundersen]

On Jul 21, 2012 8:49 AM, "Evangelos Foutras" <evangelos at foutrelis.com>
wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 2:52 AM, Tom Gundersen <teg at jklm.no> wrote:
> > [..]
> > * All variables in rc.conf can now be left unset and will default to
> > something sensible
>
> I find removing most of the variables to be confusing and would
> suggest that [1] and [2] get reverted.
>
> The commit log for [1] lists the following as the main reasoning
> behind this change:
>
> "Keeping everything in the manpage means we don't have to deal with
> .pacnew files when updating minor detals (such as default options)."
>
> My counterargument is the nonexistence, in the previous rc.conf, of
> default options that would need to be changed in a way that is
> transparent to the user.
>
> Moreover, stuff like TIMEZONE, LOCALE and MODULES should be included
> in rc.conf; nobody really wants to run their system with the default
> LOCALE=C, and quite a few people will want to load extra modules (in
> my case vboxnetflt), without messing around with other files
> (/etc/locale.conf) or adding variables back into rc.conf,
> respectively.
>
> In conclusion, a) the existing rc.conf is already stripped down to the
> essential system configuration options, b) I like having a default
> structure of these options in rc.conf instead of adding them back in
> at random places (in rc.conf), c) if we want to shift the task of
> configuring the hostname/locale/keymap/etc to external files, it might
> be preferable to remove them completely from rc.conf instead of having
> multiple points of truth.
>
> (The above is my view on this change after spending 10 minutes trying
> to figure out how I can load modules through /etc/modprobe.d, after I
> noticed that MODULES was removed from rc.conf. In my defense, I
> thought it could be similar to the time MOD_BLACKLIST was dropped. :p)
>
> [1] https://projects.archlinux.org/initscripts.git/commit/?id=5b0626
> [2] https://projects.archlinux.org/initscripts.git/commit/?id=70810a

Before answering in detail 1) did you read the man page? E.g. the
replacement for MODULES is explained there, and also the reasoning why
several of the options cause problems. 2) is it clear that only the default
changed and that you can keep your old rc.conf if you want?

Tom