Linux is not about choice [was Re: Fedora too cutting edge?]

[Les Mikesell]

David Zeuthen wrote:

>> Is it a user program that has changed my /dev/hdX into /dev/sdX more or 
>> less arbitrarily - or turns what used to be detected as eth0 into eth2 
>> when a different kernel is booted?  Admittedly it has been a while since 
>> I've used Solaris, but I can't recall anything like that ever happening 
>> with it.  In a unix-like system where access to everything is through 
>> its device/file name, what is more fundamental than that?
> 
> This is a flawed example. The problem is that you're relying on names
> assigned in an irregular fashion and it will happen on Solaris as well
> if you move disks between controllers etc.

But the old names were predictable; the new ones aren't - when I move a 
disk to a new controller/drive position, I know about it.

> The way to do this in the
> modern world is to rely on persistent names. See /dev/disk/* and the
> udev rules for stable network interface names.  Of course you can argue
> that e.g. /dev/sda or /dev/hda should stay stable but I doubt you're
> going to find much sympathy for such a point of view.

What I actually would argue is that a distribution making such changes 
should supply tools to migrate configurations based on old conventions 
to the new ones.  Maybe Fedora doesn't have users with hundreds of 
machines and data that needs to span years of operation, but a unix-like 
system should be designed to make that practical.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com