[arch-releng] Helping with AIF

[Jeremiah Dodds]

Alexander Rødseth <rodseth at gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
>
> 2012/7/31 Dieter Plaetinck <dieter at plaetinck.be>:
>> there's a bunch of configuration management tools written for this use case already.
>> like chef, puppet, ansible. many of these concerns are relatively easy to abstract for multiple distributions,
>> so writting a new tool that only targets Arch is not a good idea imho.
>
> All of the tools you mention requires several dependencies, cover
> completely different use cases from what I wrote about and are
> needlessly complex for what I had in mind, even ansible. In addition,
> it's not like the space for configuration tools is crowded and out of
> axes and variables to compete on. In short, I completely disagree with
> you on this. (And this is not a case of NIH). More momentum is needed,
> not less.

Actually, those tools *do* cover the use cases you wrote about, and even
if they didn't it would be silly to write your own configuration file
format.

> As I understand, you have resigned as a developer and is not
> interested in working on this or something like this in any case.

Do you think that nullifies the value of his feedback? 

>> an installation of any system should put only the basic system in place (incl. a config management tool),
>> everything else should be done by configuration management.
>> this makes it easier to alter the configuration of a machine long after it has been installed.
>
> I think this is nice in theory, but a failure in practice. For
> example, if someone wishes to change all the partitions from ReiserFS
> to ext4, they reinstall. Yes, it's possible to do it in other ways,
> but what a cludge of a configuration manager that would be. People
> reinstall and this should be made easier. Focusing on managing the
> post-installation configuration has proved to result in
> distro-specific configuration tools that are overkill compared to just
> editing a configuration text file and get it done with. Making the
> installation quick and easy, without users repeating themselves, is
> what should be done.

Could you point to some examples of distro-specific configuration tools
that you think are overkill? 

>
>
>> configuration management should not be tied to only the installation process.
>
> Configuration management should only be tied to the installation
> process. For the rest, there's /etc.

I have a feeling that you are using "configuration" in a broader sense,
or in a different sense than Dieter is here, there's some more
extrapolation in my other reply in this thread.

-- 
Jeremiah Dodds

github     : https://github.com/jdodds
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