[arch-general] [arch-dev-public] initscripts changes

[Thomas Bächler]

RedShift schrieb:
>> /proc and /sys are already hardcoded. About your system being broken
>> without these filesystems mounted:
>> - SSH (both server and client) won't work without devpts mounted
>> - None of the virtual X terminal things will work without devpts mounted
> 
> It doesn't prevent the system from booting and having a working virtual 
> console. So people can fix it if they decided to mess with the default 
> entries in fstab.

That's correct.

> You guys just don't get it. This is about _principle_.

YOUR principle.

> And its not because there already are some filesystems hardcoded, that 
> the rest should be.

I'm not talking about "the rest", I'm talking about things that are 
mandatory for basic system operation.

> In fact, these should be moved from hardcoding to 
> fstab. But that will probably never happen.

You're right, it won't, because it is impossible. If you would care to 
even read rc.sysinit, you would know why.

> Wether these are "virtual" or "real" filesystems, it doesn't matter: the 
> fs in fstab stands for FileSystem, period. If something needs to be 
> mounted, it should go there.

Says you?

> This is exactly as what happened with the lo moving to rc.sysinit, 
> hiding stuff so the newbies won't remove it because they think they 
> don't need it. And the fact is, if you remove lo from the system, you 
> can *still* boot your system and most stuff works without lo. So they 
> can still fix lo if they removed it.

This is not about hiding things, it is about keeping it simple. What is 
simple about having to configure something that everybody needs, always 
needs it and will break everything if it is configured differently? It 
is unnecessary to even be able to configure it. So simplicity tells me 
to hardcode it.

> I'm sick and tired of complaining about issues like these, that 
> shouldn't be discussed in the first place. Do you think I like 
> complaining?

Then don't complain, I'm sick of it. These changes do not decrease your 
flexibility, nor do they break anything.
Believe me, I am all against changes that remove control from the user. 
But this is about things a user doesn't have to control, doesn't even 
want to control. What I want is a system that is flexible on the one 
hand, robust and unbreakable on the other hand. The 'lo' change (as well 
as the devpts change) is about increasing robustness without removing 
any flexibility. I cannot see how this is not a good thing.

> Since when do we assume the user is stupid? All that's been 
> accomplished here is create a big mess.

This is rule number one of development, always assume the user is 
stupid. The result of that is, that I have less emails with complaints 
to answer, less forum posts to unbreak user's systems, one less 
bugreport to close. It essentially means that I have more time doing 
things that actually benefit the Arch community.

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