[arch-projects] [PATCH 1/7] config: add /etc/hostname support

[Tom Gundersen]

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:
> On 27/10/11 10:28, Dan McGee wrote:
>>
>> Does anyone else still hold onto the old days where configuration was
>> primarily a single file rather than scattered buckshot in /etc/? If it
>> is just me I'll shut up, but I've always loved that fact.
>
> I have to agree here.  I was fine with the locale stuff moving out as I saw
> the advantage (control over individual locale components) and that putting
> those in rc.conf would be messy.   But I do not see what advantage moving
> hostname out of rc.conf brings.

I'm happy to drop this patch if it rubs people the wrong way. I'll
give you my rationale first though, just to try and convince you I'm
not proposing things just for the sake of it :-)

1) no downsides: This is an optional feature, so if you don't do
anything you are not affected. If you prefer rc.conf and its
simplicity to whatever benefits you get from the new format, then you
are free to stick with it. Indeed, even if you were to move to
systemd, setting the hostname++ in rc.conf would still work (this was
one of my first patches to systemd).

2) interoptability: I have seen patches appearing in the gnome
repository adding support for the systemd-style config files,  and we
can only hope that other third-party projects will follow. In my
opinion it would be nice to be able to tell users that, if they want,
they can move to the new format and get these features for free. The
alternative would be to also add support for rc.conf to the relevant
third-party project, but due to rc.conf being a bash script, this is
not so simple (if we want to do it properly). To parse rc.conf, your
app needs to use a bash interpreter (as rc.conf could contain any bash
code), and writing to rc.conf can only be done correctly and without
creating a mess if you make assumptions about it's structure (e.g.
that it only contains assignments, and no conditionals / loops /
sourcing...).

3) cross-distro compatibility: imho it is a real benefit to everyone
doing the trivial things in the same way (or at least it being
possible to do them in the same way). I guess this would be
appreciated by admins who have to deal with different distros on
different machines. Eventually it would also make non-distro-specific
guides, books, tutorials, etc simpler.

What do you think? Still NACK?

-t