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

[Les Mikesell]

Horst H. von Brand wrote:

>>In the old days if it was eth0 yesterday
>> it would still be eth0 today, but that doesn't happen anymore.  The
>> servers typically have 4 nics with 2 in use and it can be painful
>> figuring how to assign the addresses and routes so the network
>> connections work on a new box or a replacement OS.
> 
> Get them by MAC, not as ethX. I.e., here I have in
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:
> 
>   # Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller
>   DEVICE=eth0
>   ONBOOT=yes
>   BOOTPROTO=dhcp
>   HWADDR=00:a0:d1:78:d7:c5
> 
> and the correct name is given to that eth.

Thanks - that works in the replacement case if I have the foresight to 
snarf the current MAC addresses before the disk dies. (Is this 
documented somewhere and is it going to stay this way?) But an equally 
common case is that new machines are being rolled out and the hardware 
tech plugging the drive in doesn't know much about linux or what the MAC 
address is for the machine - and I can't connect to help until he gets 
at least one of them right.

>> So, the generic question is, now that the system uses essentially
>> random names for devices, is there a way, or a plan for a way, to deal
>> with situations where many choices of new devices appear as a result
>> of hardware changes, disk moves, backup/restores on new hardware,
> 
> ... random hot(un)plugging, ...

Of devices that I don't necessarily want mounted.

> 
>> etc. and if so, will it require a GUI to deal with it?  So far I've
>> only heard the notion that these things should "just work" and I want
>> to make sure that everybody knows it can't "just work" because the
>> system can't possibly know want I want to do with a newly attached
>> device
> 
> The systen /can/ tell e.g. this is still the FooLaser printer serial
> XYZ-ABCDE, even though it is connected through a different USB port today.
> AFAICS, as things stand, the system is /not/ doing anything funky, it just
> gives a way of finding out what is where (and the device has a clear ID);
> and uses this if the device had been configured before. Things do get
> tricky if you want to dd(1) disk images around, or are fond of serial
> devices connected through USB-serial dongles, etc. But then you want the
> system to do non-obvious stuff...

I'd say most of what I do is non-obvious, which is why I've always liked 
unix systems that don't make wrong guesses and do what someone else 
thought should be the obvious thing.  There's a place for the black 
magic stuff, of course, but how do you turn it off - for example when 
you are building/copying drive images that will run elsewhere or you 
just want raw device access for other reasons?  And how do you identify 
the device from a set of choices?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com