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

[David Zeuthen]

On Thu, 2008-01-10 at 11:31 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
> OK, that's at least partly right but you forgot to tell me what to call 
> the device when creating the label for filesystems that support it - or 
> what name to use for access to the raw device for operations like image 
> copies and addition/removal from raid arrays.  The underlying problem 
> can't be solved at the filesystem layer.

Uhm. Did you *even* look at /dev/disk? There's by-path, by-uuid,
by-label and so forth. Heck, SUSE/Ubuntu ships udev rules for making the
md and dm devices use persistent naming too. Maybe if the distros were
better at working together at the plumbing layer (another rant of
mine)), this would be all standardized. Eventually it will all be
standardized.

> > No, Fedora is about being on the bleeding edge and creating a system
> > where you don't *need* to migrate configuration files because the files
> > will be correct if they are using stable identifiers for devices.
> 
> I haven't found that to be the case.  And I don't see any reason for 
> today's experimental change to end up being the one that sticks.

There's nothing experimental about the path modern Linux is going in
wrt. to device naming. If you had bothered you will fine that more and
more device classes, including the infamous video4linux camp, is moving
to persistent device names. It's true, however, that Fedora is
super-reluctant on taking advantage of what happens upstream and keep
using pre-2000 technology. That's, very slowly, changing though.

       David