[arch-general] My end-user $0.02 on /etc/rc.conf splitting.

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 02:52:49PM -0500, Leonid Isaev wrote:

> I wonder why everyone thinks that Archlinux is about a single config file...
> It is the same myth as "Arch is faster than distro XYZ" or the "simple BSD
> init".

A single config file or a few of them won't matter. As long as you can
stay in control without having to waste time bypassing or removing things
that you don't need but that are pulled in as dependencies of something
you do need.
Simple example: I didn't have consolekit for some years, and I don't
care about whatever it has to offer. Recent updates of xdm have pulled
it in. So far it hasn't done anything evil except being useless and
consuming system resources (50 or so threads). Same about polkit, it's
pulled in only as a depency of gconf which in turn is only there because
the Emacs package wants it. How much more of this useless stuff is going
to be added without any way to opt out in the future ? I can perfectly
understand that those things could be useful on a typical bloated consumer
desktop. But they shouldn't be required unless you install such a thing.
Systemd is similar, whatever it has to offer (e.g. on-demand running of
services) I prefer to do without, just because that is simpler and without
any doubt more secure. 

> Arch is about hackability and upstream compliance. AFAICT this is not going
> away. Besides, archlinux users should be experienced enough to manage 5 config
> files instead of 1. So if there is a single technical argument to use systemd
> syntax standard, it should overweigh 10 aesthetic predespositions.

So far I have not seen any really technical arguments, whatever has
been presented as such is as questionable as any 'aesthetic' ones.
 
Ciao,

-- 
FA

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