[arch-general] Improve the filesystem package

[Rodrigo Rivas]

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Yamakaky <yamakaky at 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