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

[David Zeuthen]

On Thu, 2008-01-10 at 11:20 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Nils Philippsen wrote:
> > On Thu, 2008-01-10 at 11:54 -0500, David Zeuthen wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2008-01-10 at 10:40 -0600, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> >>> We are badly in need of system-config-udev. I spent several hours
> >>> understanding udev adn building rules for my sound cards and tv cards.
> >>> I hadn't done a yum update on my F7 box for weeks/months (lazyness)
> >>> did one this week, and it apperently just blew away my custom udev
> >>> config
> >> Hell no. We are in badly need of this crap just working out of the box.
> >> Throwing configuration / options at the problem will only make it worse.
> >> Trying to explain this to people is apparently impossible since people
> >> keep proposing stupid configuration tools with "unbreak my system"
> >> options.
> > 
> > There's the bad idea that everything under /etc/ is configurable, but in
> > reality these rules are "program data" and ideally should go into /share
> > if that existed (which would avoid people thinking they're meant to
> > touch that stuff, hopefully).
> 
> I'm having trouble parsing that statement.  Are you saying that people 
> shouldn't be able to edit their own /etc/xxx files as documented by the 
> upstream programs or that the distribution should move the parts that it 
> modifies with its internal tools elsewhere?

Lots of files under /etc are not marked as %config or %config(noreplace)
and they are not really configuration files. It's a problem because
novice users just assume they can and should edit such files and then
they get confused when said file is overwritten on a package upgrade.

Does that make more sense?

      David